When you’re alone, and life is making you lonely, you can always go down to the theater and watch the newest movie by Edgar Wright. Wright has proven himself to be a versatile director, whether making zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead or action thriller Baby Driver. With his new film, Weight has taken a step into psychological horror with Last Night in Soho. This film stars Thomasin McKenzie as Eloise Turner, an aspiring fashion designer who moves to London and begins to have dreams of herself in the body of a young woman named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy) in the 1960s. As the dreams continue, Eloise realizes Sandie’s life is not as glamorous as it seems.
Wright has tapped into something extraordinary with this film. This is a gripping psychological thriller that captures your attention right from the get-go with some of the most breathtaking visuals you’ll see in a movie all year. In addition, it’s easily the most serious film Wright has done, with a script free of his trademark humor, instead keeping a consistent tone of mystery, surrealism, and terror. This film may be very different from Wright’s other work, but he maintained a few of his trademarks and visual style.
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Right from the opening scene, we have visually impressive camera effects as we are introduced to our protagonist, Eloise, who has a mysterious sixth sense. Wright uses reflection to perfection throughout the film, crafting every shot with so much skill and care. There are moments where Wright uses transparent glass in place of mirrors, a technique commonly used in cinema that he utilizes adeptly. Furthermore, Wright’s use of the needle drop is back in full force in this film as he uses fantastic music to fill up the soundtrack. On top of that, Taylor-Joy’s cover of “Downtown” is a beautiful, haunting theme that works wonders for this film.
It’s a film dripping with Wright’s filmmaking style, with in-camera trickery and Texas switches with our two leading ladies. But this is, again, Wright’s most unique movie yet, as it is also his first to feature a female protagonist. The screenplay, co-written with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917), does a phenomenal job of capturing womanhood in ways that have never been explored in Wright’s filmography. As a result, people can watch the characters in this movie and say, “I know people like that,” a quality which can’t be said about every Wright film.
The film’s time travel elements are used very well, as we are transported with Eloise back to the Swinging Sixties. A time with Sean Connery’s Thunderball on the luminescent marquee rather than Daniel Craig’s No Time to Die on our phone screens is captured so elegantly on film, with gorgeous cinematography and visually striking images and colors throughout the film. Soho delivers on the promise of the premise with a captivating setup that begins as a surreal mystery fantasy but goes headfirst into darker elements as the story progresses. It takes time to set up the characters and the mystery before diving into the psychological horror thrills.
But once the film goes full-blown horror, the movie becomes something unprecedented for a Wright film but commonplace in the horror genre. The scares are serviceable, consisting of jump scares and imagery we’ve seen before from other horror films. However, the film reuses a lot of the same horror imagery throughout, and as a result, Last Night in Soho doesn’t feel like it’s getting scarier as the story progresses. Instead, the story gets more compelling as it goes along, but the scares could have used a bit more work.
All that being said, Last Night in Soho is one of the best movies of the year. Wright knocks it out of the park with a spellbinding thriller that pulls you in and doesn’t let go. Everything comes to a surprisingly satisfying conclusion that resolves many of the storylines. With incredible performances from Taylor-Joy and McKenzie and Chung-hoon Chung’s cinematography that pops off the screen, this film succeeds on nearly every level. Don’t miss it.
SCORE: 8/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 9 equates to “Great.” While there are a few minor issues, this score means that the art succeeds at its goal and leaves a memorable impact.
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