Some movies are doomed by their trailers. The one I always think of is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. That trailer, scored to Of Monsters & Men, otherwise left wordless showed so much promise. It almost singlehandedly launched the movie into an Oscar discussion. Then the movie came out and was much less ambitious and inspiring. I could never forgive the movie for not being as good as the trailer. I was on high alert for that with Last Night in Soho. I love the trailer. Anya Taylor-Joy singing that haunting rendition of “Downtown” mixed with the 60s style and the hint of something sinister looked amazing. I couldn’t help but notice that I really had no clue what the movie was about based on that. That’s dangerous, because it allows the audience to build the wrong kind of expectations. Then when they finally see it, it can’t help but underwhelm.
Sadly, that is what happened with Last Night in Soho to an extent. That wasn’t a surprise though. I’m not an Edgar Wright acolyte. His movies are good. None are favorites of mine. It would be weird to expect this one to suddenly blow me away. I had hope though. It cast Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy who I both love. The film uses a lot of strong blues and reds like a Dario Argento movie. I love the contrast of new world and old world in the London setting. I’m a big fan of psychological horror too. The story of the movie itself is a lot more straightforward than I expected.
The movie is about Eloise, who moves from rural England to London to attend a fashion design school. Her grandmother raised her after her mom died young. She raised Eloise to love the 1960s as much as she did. Eloise moves into the room an older woman (Diana Rigg) is renting out. Before long, Eloise starts having intense dreams where she follows (or is) an aspiring night club singer named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy). Eloise becomes infatuated with Sandie as she finds a manager/boyfriend (Matt Smith) and navigates the brilliant 60s night life. Eloise even starts to design herself and her work after Sandie. Eventually, Sandie’s story turns dark, which messes with Eloise’s perception of the present reality. Then it becomes a question of how much of this Eloise is imagining and/or why she’s seeing this story at all.
The main casting is pretty perfect. McKenzie is great playing psychologically wounded people. I love watching her try to figure things out throughout the movie. It’s strange that this is the first time I’m seen Taylor-Joy used as a sinister presence. She’s been in a lot of horror (The Witch, Split, The New Mutants) but she’s normally a more sympathetic character in those. She’s so good as a potentially sinister presence though. When she has a character with not a hair out of place, her flawlessness is kind of terrifying. Like she can’t be real. Thoroughbreds understood that, even though it didn’t use it for horror. So does Last Night in Soho. Matt Smith fits in the 60s setting perfectly too. When the film asks him to be slick, he’s at his best. He’s not as convincing later on when he’s meant to be more intimidating. In balance, I think he’s good though.
Where the movie lost me is how passive Eloise ends up being in the flashbacks. The most intriguing part of the trailer for me is the part when Eloise looks in the mirror and Sandie looks back knowingly, like she’s aware of Eloise. The movie never quite realizes that potential though. The idea of Eloise living this life that isn’t her own and losing track of how much control she really has over it is really cool. Instead, she’s mostly just a passenger, having visions of another life that she has no control over. The story she sees is harrowing, but it makes her frustratingly reactive.
While the story fell short, the style and performances were well worth the price of admission. Few people translate their love of music into film better than Edgar Wright. His pop culture fetishizing is exactly what this production needed as well. Despite my disappointments, I’m riding pretty high on this movie right now. I’ll be curious to see how it ages. Either I’ll come to appreciate the story for what it is and love the craft involved in every frame or the story problems will grow and overtake my other memories of the movie.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
After the Credits
The messaging of this movie is pretty murky, right? So, it’s about sexual trauma as Sandie sees her dreams disappear as she gets sucked into a life of prostitution. Eloise becomes haunted by the men who slept with Sandie for money. However, it turns out that Sandie killed all those men, using her trauma as fuel for revenge. Essentially, that shifts the narrative from Sandie being a victim to being the victimizer. The men haunting Eloise are actually looking for help. So, the villain is the woman forced into sex work and the sympathetic victims are the sleazy men she slept with? I know it’s not that simple, but to achieve a good twist, Wright changed the messaging of the film in problematic ways. The way the story exploits sexual trauma for a twist had me leaving the theater feeling a little icky.
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