Film Didn't quite live up to expectations (mild spoilers)
As a huge fan of Edgar Wright's earlier work, I was highly anticipating Last Night in Soho. It's an undeniably well-made film full of his particular stylistic affectations, which complement the more serious tone of the movie well for the most part. However, I left the movie slightly underwhelmed.
Thomsin McKenzie, one of my favourite up-and-coming actresses, stars as Eloise, a sheltered fashion student enamoured with the culture of 1960s London. Thrilled to move to London to study and finally live out her vicariously nostalgic fantasies, she is understandably disappointed that reality does not match her expectations. As she decides to move out of her student digs to avoid her bitchy roommates, she rents out a room owned by Diana Rigg's character and begins experiencing vivid hallucinations of the time period she always dreamed of, though the glitz and glamour of the past disguise dark secrets of its own. Through these visions, she forms an intense symbiotic relationship with Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy), a rising and falling starlet with the world at her feet.
We get the expected amount of slick editing, stylish cinematography and catchy period tunes from Wright. The film's premise is purpose-built for wacky psychedelic visuals, but Wright doesn't go as mad as you might expect. While the atmosphere is suitably uncomfortable and paranoia-inducing at points, the actual scares are very lacklustre. And as much as McKenzie sells the performance as a sheltered young woman caving to anxiety and delusions, the film has a repetitive structure of having her encounter ghosts — horny ghosts (gives a new meaning to the word "stiffs") — in various locations, having a very public freakout, then running away through the streets of Soho. It gets predictable and tiresome after the first couple times.
Eloise herself isn't exactly the most engaging protagonist, especially compared to Wright's roster of iconic anti-heroes. Her character feels more suited to a dark kids' film in which her sudden loss of innocence when faced with a world full of moral corruption would feel more fittingly tragic. It's bizarre that Wright seems to expect the naive audience to be equally shocked and disgusted that moral corruption does, in fact, exist. Despite being a uni student and presumably having some clue of what that lifestyle entails, Eloise hates parties, barely ever hangs out with anyone her own age, and gets bullied for liking the '60s aesthetic (in an inner city fashion school? There should be likeminded hipsters out the 'Aris!) Her introverted personality can be relatable in some ways, but her dogged "not like the other girls" schtick feels rote and frankly boring for this kind of movie. Her love interest, John (Michael Ajao), is also severely underdeveloped; his whole personality is just being unfailingly nice and understanding, even during Eloise's psychotic fits.
The film is blatantly feminist, which certainly isn't a dirty word as far as I'm concerned, but the messages of the film get slightly muddled as it goes on. The aforementioned Horny Ghosts, revealed to be Sandy's many male clients, are given a humanising moment towards the end, but we are ultimately not supposed to sympathise with them too much. In the current social climate, legal sex work is being destigmatised around the world, so the premise that all these men were equally abusive and deserving to die feels tone-deaf and lacking in nuance. Sandy, meanwhile, would have been a perfectly sympathetic "woman scorned" Anti-Villain if she didn't go full Psycho (complete with scare chords!) at the end and gleefully attempt to kill Eloise for no real reason.
Overall, Last Night in Soho is a skilful outing for Wright and will certainly please his diehard fans, but compared to his past filmography, it may leave something to be desired.
Film Just what *is* a ghost?
Mild-mannered English countryside fashion designer Eloise finds her urban fellow design students cruel and insufferable, and decides to move into an old boarding house. There, she starts to receive dreams of her favorite time period, the 1960s in London, and is captivated by a gorgeous confident singer, Sandie. However, Ellie's dreams soon turn into increasingly horrific and intrusive visions as her desire to uncover the whole awful story cuts dangerously into her life.
The film is extremely slick in its surrealism and horror. Brilliant visual effects and staging are used to constantly blur Ellie and Sandie together, with them swapping out in mirror reflections and switching places and costumes as they share a space in the past, all paired with Ellie consciously embodying elements of Sandie to reinvent herself in her waking time. The visions are started with red and blue lighting flashes hailing from the real world, and the bedroom and lights soon create Pavlovian dread for the next vision.
The film is about a lot of things. Mental health struggles and isolation fuel the characters' concern for Ellie as she seems on the verge of a seriously dangerous breakdown, but there's a lot about loss of innocence, misogynist abuse, and the death of a dream as Ellie and Sandie face the perils of London and adulthood and the cruelty in fame. The film plays really well with the idea of ghosts as a concept, as we see some ghosts are memories and some memories are actually ghosts, and it creates a unique horror atmosphere.
Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy are excellent in their roles(s) and the evolution each character undergoes is compelling. The film plays very heavily with the question of whether Sandie will notice or interact with Ellie and what that interaction will mean, and the relationship of the two characters gets a really interesting resolution. I think Ellie can seem a little too far into the "born in the wrong generation" mindset, but seeing how her experiences tell her how wrong that mindset is, it works out. I'll also say this film has one of my all-time favorite climaxes. While I could easily guess the first narrative revelation that starts the ending climax, the second revelation that drove the climax blindsided me while instantly twisting the film upside-down in a way that elevates the experience into something else while adding its own ideas. This film absolutely stuck the landing for me by ending with a big flourish.
This was a well-done surrealist thriller with lots of compelling atmosphere, acting, visuals, and narrative turns. It's maybe not the deepest, but I think it's a great viewing experience.