By: Andrew Wing

Last Night in Soho is a 2021 British psychological horror film directed by Edgar Wright, with a screenplay by Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns (co-wrote the critically acclaimed 2019 British war film 1917 with its director Sam Mendes), from a story by Wright. The story follows Eloise Turner, a young girl very passionate about fashion design who is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters her idol, a beautiful dazzling wannabe singer. However, 1960s London is not what it seems, and time seems to be falling apart with shady consequences.

The film stars Thomasin McKenzie (Leave No Trace, Jojo Rabbit) in the lead role of Eloise Turner, and also features Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Split, The Queen’s Gambit), Matt Smith (Doctor Who, The Crown), Michael Ajao, Terence Stamp (Superman, The Limey), and Diana Rigg (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Game of Thrones) in her final film appearance after passing away in 2020.

Last Night in Soho premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom and United States on October 29, 2021 by Universal Pictures and Focus Features.

THE GOOD

No surprise here, but a trailer does a lot for a movie in terms of getting audiences excited to see it when it comes out. A good trailer usually leads to a pretty good turnout come opening weekend, and the opposite is usually true for a movie with a bad trailer. With Last Night in Soho, they put out a phenomenal trailer. The trailer showed stunning visuals, featured some huge names, and also included a magnificent song choice with “Downtown”. All that combined got me so pumped for the movie, it even made me feel like it had potential for some Oscar nominations after seeing what my favorite movie of 2020, Promising Young Woman, did for the thriller genre at the Academy Awards. Did it meet my expectations though? You’ll just have to read and find out!

This movie was already right up my alley being in the psychological horror genre, but add in Edgar Wright directing, a director who has yet to miss with his films if you ask me, and I was on cloud nine. With Edgar Wright, this is his 6th feature film following Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), The World’s End (2013), and Baby Driver (2017), but this was the first one where we find him delving into psychological horror. For this being his first crack at this genre, I thought he did a really good job. I had some problems with the writing that I will discuss later, but I was so impressed with basically everything else with the film that he had a hand in such as the production design, cinematography, the sound, and obviously the performances. It was just extremely evident throughout the film that Edgar Wright has been growing as a filmmaker throughout every film he has done.

Additionally, you could really tell Wright put more focus on the visuals (production design) and the cinematography more than any other movie he’s done in the past. The movie was visually striking. All of the scenes where they went back to the 1960s were jaw-dropping, the production design was incredible, and as a film buff myself, I had a huge smile on my face seeing all of the old school 60s blockbuster movie posters on street signs and in rooms. Also, there were so many solid lighting choices and the use of color in this film was fantastic. There were just so many impressive shots in this film that were extremely well edited (the main dancing scene you get in the trailer where both girls go back and forth between who is dancing with Matt Smith’s character) and all these elements being so well done added to the overall visual product this film is.

And now for the best part of this movie, the performance of one Thomasin McKenzie. She was really really good in this, and this is exactly the kind of movie I want to see her in. She completely sold me on the character’s personality and her shyness. She played a character that is going in all these different directions and that allowed us to see a lot of range from her which was a treat. She really just ate this role up. I didn’t need anymore evidence after loving her in Leave No Trace and Jojo Rabbit, but after seeing her in this you could really argue she is the best young actress out there today and there is no denying that she is going to be around for a while. I also did enjoy the beautiful Anya Taylor-Joy in this. She was very good as the mysterious Sandie, and going into this I honestly was expecting her to steal the show from McKenzie, but with her character basically being an extension of McKenzie’s character Eloise, it kept the spotlight on her.

Lastly, the sound design was really cool in this movie and worth the price of admission. There were a bunch of different sound effects they used that felt specific to each scene and all that just brought another layer to this picture. I was just so impressed with all the different creative choices that Edgar Wright and his team put into this.

THE BAD

First things first, this is a good movie, but I don’t think it lived up to my expectations unfortunately. Maybe the trailer made me set the bar too high for this one, but the one thing keeping it from exceeding my expectations was simply the writing. The movie couldn’t have started out any better. I thought they were doing an excellent job at showing us McKenzie’s character’s backstory and why she is the way she is, and also how she gets introduced to this world. However, in the second half, the film sort of went downhill for me. It had you on the edge of your seat deeply intrigued at what is going on with the main character of Eloise Turner, but right around the halfway mark they just stop exploring what I think the movie was going for and instead just turns into this funhouse horror thriller show. I won’t lie, some of the horror scenes in the second half did scare me pretty good (just ask my Mom who I saw it with), but after a while the thrills themselves became overdone and almost irritating in some scenes. I don’t know, the scares got wacky and became just a little bit too much for me.

There is just a lot that happens in the second half of this film. The film goes through a rollercoaster of genres in this second half, and because of that, it almost felt counterproductive to everything they gave us in the first half because it made me lose sight of the main character which is not something you ever want with these kinds of movies. I strongly believe that the film would have been better if it just focused on the one sole genre (psychological thriller) because there was a lot there to work with.

THE VERDICT

Despite some questionable choices that ultimately lead to a messy second half, Last Night in Soho is still a fun journey worth going on filled with striking visuals, superb production design, and a tremendous performance from one of the best young actresses today in Thomasin McKenzie.

The 6th film from the amazing Edgar Wright is unlike anything we have seen from him before, as it is stylish, engrossing and an emotionally hard-hitting crowd pleaser that I would argue is the most mature output of his impressive career.