Movie Review: Last Night in Soho

Although it begins as an apparently straight-forward fish-out-of-water tale of a young fashion designer from rural Scotland attending university in London, director Edgar Wright’s occasionally dazzling Last Night in Soho doesn’t quite succeed in sustaining its edge-of-insanity mystery thriller pace throughout its running time, despite producing some memorable moments and performances along the way.

The aspiring designer, named Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), is initially taken aback by the perils posited by her new city life as she doesn’t seem to fit in with her new roommate nor with any of her fellow students. So, she sets about finding a new place to live where she can better focus on her studies. To that end she comes across an ad posted by a Miss Collins (the late Diana Rigg) who has a room to rent. Upon moving in, Eloise begins to have visions of a singer named Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy) from the 1960s who apparently lived in the same room. While her initial time travel episodes to the past are exciting and somewhat glamorous, things quickly go astray as Eloise seems to be caught in Sandy’s dark, less-than-enchanting, perilous existence.

Controlling Sandy’s career, or rather, controlling Sandy, is her boyfriend/manager Jack (Matt Smith), who, although may seem as though he has the best intentions in mind, may be harboring a darker side to his persona. Betwixt her travels to the past, Eloise tries her own hand at dating and even starts to take on some of the personality traits of the seemingly free and courageous Sandy (such as dying her hair blonde). But, as she learns more of Sandy’s story, so too does Eloise’s own tale take more of a darker turn.

Matt Smith and Anya Taylor-Joy in “Last Night in Soho.” Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh – © 2021 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Director Wright, whose last film was the inexplicably fun and energetic Baby Driver (2017), does a fine job with the two separate parts of the story, but seems a little unsure of how to marry them together as that just sort of happens without any organic reason to. That is not to say that the script, co-wrote by Wright along with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (who penned 1917 alongside Sam Mendes in 2019), does not feature enough twists and turns, as well as eccentricities, to produce enough thrills to make it worthwhile, rather that it just feels as though there could have been so much more to this than there ultimately ends of being.

Overall, Last Night in Soho is beautiful to behold. The cinematography of Chung Chung-hoon is spectacular in capturing the effortlessly ethereal production design of Marcus Rowland. The editing work by Paul Machliss too makes for a wonderfully paced experienced that bounces you along with Eloise between the present and the past without missing a beat.

What is frustrating about Last Night in Soho is exactly how great it could have been, and almost is for that matter, there is a lot going on in Edgar Wright’s film but it leaves so much unaccounted for that it remains to be seen whether the film will languish in a cinematic limbo or escape and instead speak instead to an audience that will embrace it as a classic of sorts.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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