Halloween Horror: Last Night in Soho (2021)

Last Night in Soho, Edgar Wright’s time-bending horror-mystery, works better when it leans into the unsettling psychological terror of the concept and worse when it falls back on horror movie clichés.

In the film, Eloise (or Ellie) Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) is an aspiring fashion designer who is obsessed with Swinging London of the 1960s, to the point that in the first scene, it’s unclear, based on the girl’s taste in music and clothing, which time period the movie is set in. Wright is also clearly obsessed with the era, and one of the film’s strengths is his clear affection for and knowledge of the period, which comes principally through the killer soundtrack and the production design’s close attention to period styles in fashion and nightlife.

I also like how nonchalantly weird Last Night in Soho is at first. The narrative begins slowly and carefully, only hinting at the strange things to come. For example, early on Wright shows Ellie casually conversing with a young woman who disappears when the camera moves, quietly suggesting that the young woman was a ghost or phantom. Likewise, it is suggested, and never directly stated, that Ellie is something of a medium; she seems to regularly converse with her dead mother, although, in conversations with her grandmother (Rita Tushingham), Ellie says she’s gotten over that. That is just one way in which the film is subtle in certain narrative suggestions. What happened to her mother? What’s the actual psychological state of Ellie?

When Ellie gets into the London College of Fashion, her grandmother warns her that “London can be a lot,” but Ellie goes forward with the move anyways. Unfortunately, Ellie doesn’t manage to fit in with the other college students and the pace and scale of the big city. Wanting to escape her student residence, Ellie obtains a flat in Soho leased by an old lady (played by the late Diana Rigg in her final performance). Ellie soon discovers that when she goes to bed in the old attic flat, she has intense dreams about the past, namely 1960s London. In her dreams, she follows the experiences of a young woman, Sandie (played by Anya Taylor-Joy in a show-stealing performance). Sandie is an aspiring nightclub singer who comes under the wing of the charming, cunning Jack (played by Matt Smith, oozing dangerous appeal, as usual). Did Sandie once live in Ellie’s flat? Is she a ghost? Or is Ellie actually inhabiting the past as she sleeps?

As my above questions perhaps demonstrate, the premise of Last Night in Soho is immensely intriguing, and there’s a lot to like about the film. Perhaps its best feature is Wright’s knack for combining music and stylish visuals through editing. For instance, the neon signs that alternate between red and blue, enveloping the girl’s London flat, are exploited for great effect. Wright is a master of repetitive montage patterns. Here, he conveys Ellie’s descent into the dream or medium world each night, when she puts a record on and goes to sleep, with such verve, confidence, and showmanship.

But because Last Night in Soho has such a great hook and many excellent features, including much of the cinematography and some of the performances, it is especially disappointing when the film goes off the rails in the second half. We begin to learn that Sandie is being groomed and exploited, and the story turns to the London underworld and prostitution. This dark thematic turn had potential, but it’s mostly played out through a series of chases and freakouts rather than through actually exploring the emotional or psychological impacts of the situation.

In particular, Wright’s handling of the two principal female characters, Ellie and Sandie, is both underdeveloped and overdone. The film creates parallels between them in the narrative and visuals, but it fails to truly clarify and probe the psychological state of either young woman. I was left feeling like there was so much potential to explore the psychological blurring of their two identities, given Ellie’s desire to live her life in the dream world she inhabits at night. Instead, at the point that more sinister dimensions are uncovered, the film skirts away from psychology and embraces chase and slasher horror. The phantoms of the past johns become zombie hordes chasing Ellie in what feels like way too many scenes. Ellie loses her mind, races around, freaks out. Alas, narratively and visually, Last Night in Soho loses its intrigue and style and becomes boring and repetitive.

Most puzzling, however, is Wright’s desire to, as they say, have his cake and eat it too, by trying for one more turn of the screw, narratively, while maintaining themes about misogynistic exploitation of women. The result is thematic confusion rather than purposeful moral ambiguity.

For those who have seen Last Night in Soho, are we supposed to sympathize with or condemn the serial killer? Does the film’s desire to keep twisting while also having a smart-alec last shot only muddle that message? In my view, Wright’s desire to have late-minute twists doesn’t accord with the tone of his final shot, involving a knowing wink at a ghost in a mirror. We get a friendly wink after what that person has just done? That either diminishes the previous terror of the climax (not to mention one particular victim), or at least makes it a mess. As the title evokes memory, we could say that Last Night in Soho remains too much like a muddled hangover memory, a mix of elation and confusion, when it could have been a piercing, disturbing vision.

5 out of 10

Last Night in Soho (2021, UK/USA/China)

Directed by Edgar Wright; screenplay by Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns; starring Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao, Terence Stamp, and Diana Rigg.

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