"Last Night in Soho" Review: Mesmerizingly Catchy

Platform: In Theaters

Release Date: October 29, 2021

In Edgar Wright’s first feature film since 2017 hit “Baby Driver,” a young aspiring fashion designer, Eloise "Ellie" Turner (Thomasin McKenzie), is accepted into the London College of Fashion and excitedly leaves her simple upbringing in the countryside to tackle new challenges in city of London. As her early experiences highlight her place as an outcast in the city, her unique extrasensory ability to see and feel things that others can not begin to connect her to the life of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy). Through her connecton to this aspiring singer, Ellie is able to experience London in the 1960s as she watches Sandie's experiences of trying to succeed in the entertainment world. As she grows to idolize the Sandie, Ellie begins to be haunted by other spirits that are tied to Sandie's story and begins to see Sandie's life take a dark turn after meeting her new manager Jack (Matt Smith). When her visions cause her to witness Sandie's murder, Ellie becomes obsessed with figuring out what happened to Sandie and bring this tragedy to justice. As she draws closer and closer to uncovering the truth, Ellie's reality begins to fall apart as her and Sophie's lives begin to overlap.

Three words immediately came to mind once the credits stopped rolling: intriguing, gripping, and palatable. It was such an easy experience watching this movie and it was a really interesting experience. It was not necessarily enthralling in story, but in the mix of styles Edgar Wright brought to this psychological thriller. Blending elements of a period piece, surrealism, mystery, romance, and horror, the movie felt fresh from beginning to end as it never became complacent in a single genre element.

I cannot count how many times my feet were moving and my head was bopping to this movie's wonderful soundtrack. As was most notable with his last film, Wright has a talent for using a movie's soundtrack as more than just background sound but as an added element that moves the plot forward and "Last Night in Soho" was no exception. Every song was eerily relevant to the scenes and pace of the plot during the portions in which they were played. Alterations in the music's sound was also a tool for building suspense and tension as Ellie encounters haunting visions of the past and that, combined with the color play, helped capture the thriller element of the film's many influences. This movie plays with colors, pacing, and surrealism in ways that make it feel much more unique than it actually is, but still maintains a high sense of interest. The flashing neon lights of the present and the overload of flashy lights from the 1960's-era London each maintain unique flavors that help differentiate between the time periods. The way this movie uses colors helps establish an ambience that exists throughout the movie and also lends to smooth transitions as Ellie slips between reality and her extrasensory experiences.

Getting drawn into the movie through its catch music was easy enough, but getting pulled into the somewhat rocky story being told is all thanks to the film's fantastic cast. I only had the pleasure of seeing Thomasin McKenzie in "Jo Jo Rabbit" (a great film) prior to this one and she does an unbelievable job of balancing Ellie's personality in her journeys through naive to skeptic to frantic. Even when she makes the wrong decisions, McKenzie translates Ellie's innocent determination into something that is relatable and is able to pull sympathy from the audience. Anya Taylor-Joy is an absolute succubus of attention, stealing every scene that she graced with her performance as a hard-striking woman who uses men's weakness to get revenge on those who wish to use her. If there is a weakpoint in the characters, it is Matt Smith as Sandie's boyfriend/manager who is painted to be the primary antagonist. His performance was good, but the character was not written in a way that ever really made him feel like a villain, but just an unfortunate product of the strong patriarchal society of 1960's London. The rest of the supporting cast take quite the backseat to our leading ladies, but they still only added to the quality of the film, with Terrance Stamp and Dana Rigg as particular standouts.

There was nothing particulary original about the story, but the way it was told. When the style is stripped away, on which the movie relies perhaps a bit too heavily, this is a movie that lives in a confusion of genres and does not always get the blending down too well. It initially exists as a surreal thriller that has nods to themes of identity and nostalgia before it hits the ground running as a murder mystery that establishes elements that end up feeling like cheap red herrings. There are expectations for the film, particularly related to Ellie's visions, that are established and set throughout the movie with no in-story reason for doubting. However, the primary reveal that leads to the film's climax breaks that expectation with no rhyme or reason and makes the reveal ultimately come off as a bit unearned. The actual murder mystery components of the film are exposed a bit too late in the film to really build much momentum towards the eventual solution, leaving the plot a bit misbalanced.

The movie appears to carry a lot of themes throughout its plot, such as identity, idol worship, and nostalgia, while also conjuring commentaries on patriarchy and women's oppression (both by men and each other). The latter themes are the most obvious, with the majority of men in this film concerned primarily with satisfying their libido. The confusing thing is that the men painted as animals concerned only with sexualizing women meet fitting fates, but the two men who end up being the most redeemable are not spared from harm either. I really appreciated the theme of identity that carries Ellie's character development as it helped establish her as a sympathetic character. It was also the theme that helped parallel her and Sandie's lives as they each strove to establish their names in their respective dream professions.

What this movie lacks in some character depth and in plot details, it well than makes up for in concept and style. Even though it would have been better served with more of a balance between the two, "Last Night in Soho" is a very easy and enjoyable watch that breezes through its nearly two hour runtime. If your experience is anything like mine, you will find yourself mesmerized and immersed in this film and not easily be able to narrow down why. Nevertheless, with these last two Edgar Wright films, he is slowly creeping towards an exciting must watch director.

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RATING: 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 / 5

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