PG Score: 7.5/10
Last Night in Soho was released in theaters on 10/29/21
Edgar Wright: Still Got It
Last Night in Soho is Director Edgar Wright’s latest addition to his excellent resume. Where a lot of his films go heavy on the humor, this movies goes straight for the suspense, making me jump in my seat several times and flinch half a dozen. Heavily influenced by the music of the 60’s, Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) always includes a great soundtrack in his films that only enhances what we are seeing on screen. Last Night in Soho tells two stories at the same time through our co-leads, Thomasin McKenzie (JoJo Rabbit) and Anya Taylor-Joy (Split) who are mysteriously linked through time with Eloise (McKenzie) living in present day and Sandy’s (Taylor-Joy) story happening in the 1960’s.
Plot
The psychological thriller follows Eloise, a mentally disturbed young woman who moves to London for design school in hopes of becoming a famous designer. Not quite fitting in with her new classmates and finding herself the butt of jokes, she quickly moves off campus and rents her own flat from an elderly lady, Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg).
Eloise blossoms and soon finds herself excelling in school when she takes inspiration from these realistic dreams she is falling into. In these dreams she becomes someone else. At times she is Sandy and at others she witnesses Sandy in action. Sandy is an aspiring singer with several talents; her life in the 1960s is Eloise’s dream come true. As Sandy’s life unfolds each night with a new dream, Eloise gets more swept up with the lifestyle and looks forward to the end of her days. When events begin to take a turn for the worse and Eloise starts seeing landmarks from the past in present time, she starts to wonder if what she is seeing actually happened.
Enter Matt Smith (Doctor Who) as Jack, who seems like the perfect guy for Sandy. He’s a handsome man who promises to set her up with his connections and get her on stage. Unfortunately, everything takes a turn for both Eloise and Sandy when Jack reveals his true colors and Eloise is haunted with a waking nightmare that she can’t escape.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Last Night in Soho delivers everything the trailers promised and is a fitting film for the Halloween season. It’s an edge of your seat suspense ride that keeps you guessing all the way to the end. It’s a fun movie, but it is not without its flaws.
Eloise’s mental illness is brought up early and seen throughout the film, but we never quite figure out what role they have in her experiencing the dreams, nor do we figure out how her haunted dreams come to be. The acting is fine; you believe the horror the characters are feeling. This being Diana Rigg’s (Game of Thrones) last film, it is definitely a fun sendoff for her storied career.
The pros outweigh the cons and the story takes you on a fun-filled ride, so I would definitely recommend checking out Last Night in Soho, even if it is not a film to add to the collection.