Director: Edgar Wright
Notable Cast: Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt
Smith, Diana Rigg, Michael Ajao, Terence Stamp
At this point, I'm feeling a bit out of the loop. I adored
Edgar Wright as a director in decades previous, but his last two films -
including Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho, have left me oddly
cold. I think it’s because I feel like Wright has started to write his scripts
to match visuals versus crafting visuals to fit the depths of the script. It's
a small and nuanced change in approach, but one that I feel undercuts many of
the interesting elements in his latest film, Last Night in Soho.
With his love letter to giallo and the murder mysteries of
the 1960s (some serious Mario Bava vibes here which is always a plus), Last
Night in Soho is a gorgeous piece of cinema, and its direction and editing
are impressive. The use of dream-like flow and fading with the narrative is
artfully done. If anything, Wright is definitely soaring with his visual pops,
use of mirror tricks, and creating that sense of "parallel" timelines
that evokes a sense of fantasy that slowly seeps into nightmares.
The initial foray for our heroine Eloise, played with a
naive innocence usually reserved for coming-of-age stories by Thomasin McKenzie, into
the visions following a young woman Sandy in the 1960s London nightclub scene,
is a tour de force of impeccable set design, mirror usage, lighting, and fluid
camera work. As visuals fluctuate around this idea of ghostly visions overlaid
on real life, it proves just how incredible Wright can be as a director and the
cinematography by Jeong Jeong-hun matches his ambitions with relative ease. For
fans of visual style, it's hard not to wallow in the world of Last Night in
Soho for all its strengths and it’s the main reason to love this
film.
One aspect that will either be a huge positive or negative
for the film, depending on its viewer, is the use of music throughout.
Last Night in Soho, like its predecessor, is inherently built around some
of its music choices - mostly 1960s pop and rock hits, that are meant to evoke
an emotional and sensory build for the characters and audience. The music is on
point for that usage particularly for those who enjoy that era, but it can be
massively overwhelming in its non-stop 'assault' on the listener. At times it
becomes almost too self-aware in a meta manner that pulled me out of the
scenario on hand rather than deepening the experience. When characters
start using lyrics as dialogue, it deflates its usage.
The biggest obstacle for Last Night in Soho to climb
ends up being its script and narrative. Yes, the initial conceit is fascinating
and ripe for thematic weight and interpretation, but as the film powers
through, it loses its grip on just what those themes should be and tries to
deliver twists and turns that are not emotionally earned in its storytelling.
It’s as if Last Night in Soho was written with the idea of powering
through to the next sequence of visual or atmospheric punches and then using generic
threads to tie it all together. Too many of these issues arise in the third act
within the film’s reveals or more terrifying moments of horror-inspired ghostly
spooks for me to dive into in more detail. Its potential statements on so many
intriguing topics such as the use of women as a commodity, the circular nature
of trauma, or the biases of perspective end up a jumbled concoction trying to
fit the visual schemes and murder mystery structures and failing to support one
another.
All in all, it’s understandable why Last Night in Soho
has received mixed reactions from critics but raving reviews from its fans, the
ones that have seen it thus far as it struggles to make an impact act the box
office at the time of this writing. It’s a relatively mixed effort where the
ambitions of its execution end up cracking the foundations of its story and
character work. There’s still plenty to love here with gorgeously layered
visuals, a sweeping atmosphere that uses its fantastical concept well, and some
popping performances that use the screen presence of both Anya Taylor-Joy and
Matt Smith to intriguing effect. Unfortunately, Last Night in Soho is a
gorgeous manor built so impressively intricate and large that it has cracked
its foundations and its construction crew has failed to reinforce its
load-bearing structures. Too much of a push and it’s easy to see entire
portions crumble under the weight.
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