LAST NIGHT IN SOHO
***
Director: Edgar Wright
Screenwriter: Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Edgar Wright, based on a story by Wright.
Principal cast:
Thomasin McKenzie
Anya Taylor-Joy
Michael Ajao
Matt Smith
Diana Rigg
Terence Stamp
Rita Tushingham
Country: UK
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 116 mins.
Australian release date: 18 November 2021.
Last Night in Soho is Baby Driver director Edgar Wright’s homage to the Swingin’ Sixties in London, and the music and the movies of the time. Just to emphasise the connection, he’s even cast three of the biggest actors from that decade in his film: Diana Rigg, Terence Stamp and Rita Tushingham. Add in some of today’s hottest young actors – Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith – and you’ve got the basis for what should be a remarkable movie. Unfortunately, however, these excellent thespians can’t save Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ screenplay from its excesses when it goes all Grand Guignol. Up until then it’s an impressive piece of filmmaking.
Eloise ‘Ellie’ Turner (McKenzie) is an aspiring fashion designer living in Cornwall with her gran, Peggy (Tushingham), when she receives a letter informing her that she has been accepted into the London College of Fashion. Naturally, she is over the moon but Peggy is a little wary of letting her innocent grand-daughter loose in the big city. She knows that the girl has “a gift” that enables her to see her dead mother and that these sightings can have emotionally negative side-effects on her. Ellie won’t be put off though and she heads off to Soho, moving first into student digs before renting a top-floor room in a large house owned by Mrs. Collins (Diana Rigg), who says she bought the building “for buttons” in the 1960s and hasn’t updated it since then. Ellie is obsessed with ‘60s fashion and music, so it suits her to a T; that is until, on her first night there, she starts having visions about a wannabe singer called Sandie (Taylor-Joy) and these visions take place in… 1960’s Soho.
There are some thematic strands linking Last Night in Soho with another film in cinemas this week, @Zola, namely the appalling treatment of women at the hands of men. As Ellie learns more and more about Sandie’s life, she begins to think that something terrible happened to her and that her dreams have revealed an unsolved crime. “I love London and I love the Sixties,” co-writer/director Wright says, “but with the city it’s a love-hate relationship. It can be brutal and beautiful in equal measure. It’s ever shifting too, with gentrification and new architecture slowly changing the landscape. With all this in mind, it’s easy to romanticize previous decades; even ones you were not alive for. Maybe you would be forgiven for thinking that time travelling back to the Swingin’ Sixties would be amazing. But then there’s a nagging doubt. Would it, though? Particularly from a female perspective.” As Ellie’s visions begin to impinge on her waking hours, we too learn that life for Sandie was far different to the one she had imagined for herself. Krysty Wilson-Cairns explains that, “[Last Night in Soho is] a love letter to the past, but a warning as well not to look back with too much nostalgia, or gloss over the seedy underbelly.”
Wright’s film looks a treat - its production design, costumes and makeup, lighting and cinematography are in keeping with its ‘60s look and style - plus, of course, it has a fantastic period soundtrack featuring artists like Peter & Gordon, Cilla Black, Barry Ryan, The Searchers, Dusty Springfield and The Kinks. Last Night in Soho features some very clever camera-work and choreography using mirrors and reflective surfaces when first we see Sandie and Ellie together, coming, as they do, from different decades but appearing to be in the same place at the same time. So, there is much to admire here, and to think about, before the story goes completely over the top and becomes more of a horror film than a whodunit.
Screenwriter: Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Edgar Wright, based on a story by Wright.
Principal cast:
Thomasin McKenzie
Anya Taylor-Joy
Michael Ajao
Matt Smith
Diana Rigg
Terence Stamp
Rita Tushingham
Country: UK
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 116 mins.
Australian release date: 18 November 2021.
Last Night in Soho is Baby Driver director Edgar Wright’s homage to the Swingin’ Sixties in London, and the music and the movies of the time. Just to emphasise the connection, he’s even cast three of the biggest actors from that decade in his film: Diana Rigg, Terence Stamp and Rita Tushingham. Add in some of today’s hottest young actors – Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith – and you’ve got the basis for what should be a remarkable movie. Unfortunately, however, these excellent thespians can’t save Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ screenplay from its excesses when it goes all Grand Guignol. Up until then it’s an impressive piece of filmmaking.
Eloise ‘Ellie’ Turner (McKenzie) is an aspiring fashion designer living in Cornwall with her gran, Peggy (Tushingham), when she receives a letter informing her that she has been accepted into the London College of Fashion. Naturally, she is over the moon but Peggy is a little wary of letting her innocent grand-daughter loose in the big city. She knows that the girl has “a gift” that enables her to see her dead mother and that these sightings can have emotionally negative side-effects on her. Ellie won’t be put off though and she heads off to Soho, moving first into student digs before renting a top-floor room in a large house owned by Mrs. Collins (Diana Rigg), who says she bought the building “for buttons” in the 1960s and hasn’t updated it since then. Ellie is obsessed with ‘60s fashion and music, so it suits her to a T; that is until, on her first night there, she starts having visions about a wannabe singer called Sandie (Taylor-Joy) and these visions take place in… 1960’s Soho.
There are some thematic strands linking Last Night in Soho with another film in cinemas this week, @Zola, namely the appalling treatment of women at the hands of men. As Ellie learns more and more about Sandie’s life, she begins to think that something terrible happened to her and that her dreams have revealed an unsolved crime. “I love London and I love the Sixties,” co-writer/director Wright says, “but with the city it’s a love-hate relationship. It can be brutal and beautiful in equal measure. It’s ever shifting too, with gentrification and new architecture slowly changing the landscape. With all this in mind, it’s easy to romanticize previous decades; even ones you were not alive for. Maybe you would be forgiven for thinking that time travelling back to the Swingin’ Sixties would be amazing. But then there’s a nagging doubt. Would it, though? Particularly from a female perspective.” As Ellie’s visions begin to impinge on her waking hours, we too learn that life for Sandie was far different to the one she had imagined for herself. Krysty Wilson-Cairns explains that, “[Last Night in Soho is] a love letter to the past, but a warning as well not to look back with too much nostalgia, or gloss over the seedy underbelly.”
Wright’s film looks a treat - its production design, costumes and makeup, lighting and cinematography are in keeping with its ‘60s look and style - plus, of course, it has a fantastic period soundtrack featuring artists like Peter & Gordon, Cilla Black, Barry Ryan, The Searchers, Dusty Springfield and The Kinks. Last Night in Soho features some very clever camera-work and choreography using mirrors and reflective surfaces when first we see Sandie and Ellie together, coming, as they do, from different decades but appearing to be in the same place at the same time. So, there is much to admire here, and to think about, before the story goes completely over the top and becomes more of a horror film than a whodunit.