Last Night in Soho (2021) — Movie Review
I write reviews based on four categories: Coherence, Intensity of Effect, Complexity, and Originality, each based on a score of 1 to 5. The total score is averaged out of these parts.
I finally got around to seeing Edgar Wright’s 2021 film “Last Night in Soho” starring Thomasin Mckenzie and Anya Taylor Joy. It was a film that was so disappointing, it actually made me look back at my fondness for Wright’s work with tarnished eyes, and eventually I understood that liking his movies is now the exception, rather than the rule. To find out why this happened, I would like to review Last Night in Soho and perhaps explain some of its strengths, but more importantly its weaknesses, that led to this reaction. I will be spoiling the film, so you have been warned.
Coherence
When looking at Soho’s coherence, we see obvious problems. First is the question of the intention of the film. What starts as a sort of paranormal drama morphs into a slasher, a psychodrama, and a thriller. Much of the work of the movie is designed not to bring the viewer along, but to confuse or mislead them. One of the most incisive comments came from YouTuber YourMovieSucks in conjunction with his colleagues at Sardonicast, when he stated that a key moment in the film was deliberately false to the viewer, despite it being a vision. For the movie to both lean into visions leading us to a real corporeal killer, as well as towards a suspect who turns out to be a red herring, is explicitly manipulative. Between genre and the logic of the narrative, many aspects of the film lack the structured repetitions that we come to find from Edgar Wright’s previous comedic work. The placing of jokes into a new context has helped to provide an anchoring structure to his comedy that helps to answer the difficult question of how to succeed with a comedic film in its second half, something I have always seen as a problem with the form. In Last Night in Soho, much of that repetition is abandoned, and nothing replaces it. There is very little foreshadowing, very little work done with characterization to warrant such attention to detail. Instead, many viewers are forced to be subjected to each turn of the plot without having any sort of buy in. The resolution of the film is truly remarkable for its unbelievability, its melodramatic tone, and both of these stem for a viewer who is not ready for these truths of the film. What the film sets up rather admirably in the first half it could not act upon. For Eloise, we know that the crux of the film has to do with nostalgia and its painful counterpart in reality. Unfortunately, little is done with it. A 2 out of 5 is easy to conclude for coherence.
Intensity of Effect
Like my similar reaction to the ending of Hocus Pocus 2, Last Night in Soho does not land the ending, and flubs it so bad as to cause confusion from the audience. While an action scene like Top Gun: Maverick produces hand clenching tension at what is effectively actors sitting in a cockpit and emoting, Last Night in Soho features repeated zombies that look drab, and are featured in a twist that reminded me of the worst Doctor Who episodes. Much of the tension of the film is muted by this hokey zombie aesthetic, as well as a pulp sensibility towards violence. Many of the glamorous and sweeping shots are also used in what are supposed to be thrilling or horrific scenes, and conflating the two to produce a too slick experience, one that is not grounded. Any attempt to put our protagonist into trouble is mediated by the film, sometimes by characters literally stopping our character from causing violence. Eloise, regardless of whether the visions are real or not, is in a precarious place by the end of the film, but all of this is swept away with a fun ending. A kind of emotional rug pull of this kind is not looked at with pleasure from an audience. It is instead deflating. We wonder what the point of all of it was. While the second half of the film produced this astonishment, much of the beginning of the film establishes quite a lot of good tension and escalation, though parts of it felt a little too repetitious. Much of her problem with her fellow classmates was quickly dropped for another genre of film. While Black Swan managed, for example, to actively include colleagues like Mila Kunis into the central dilemma for Natalie Portman’s role, this duality did not occur with our Eloise. It could have occurred with Anya Taylor Joy, but this dichotomy was not explored. As a result, Ellie is an observer in her own story. A 3 out of 5 is adequate here.
Complexity
Last Night in Soho could have been a complex film. While other films that address nostalgia, such as Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, offer more of a fable with a very direct lesson, Last Night in Soho could have been far more ambiguous. Perhaps Ellie is using Sandie’s life as a way to mine it for her school work as a fashion designer. Perhaps Ellie is so entranced by 1960s London that she becomes trapped, while Sandie trades places with her and falls in love with a more egalitarian future for women, though much more competitive for showbusiness. Rather than dabble into the themes of nostalgia the movie itself brings up, the movie instead chooses the theme of predatory behavior by men, regardless of time period. This parallel structure occurs with both women, with Ellie’s love interest John getting caught picking up the pieces. The film is careful to answer only the questions it wants to, leaving other opportunities, like Ellie’s relationship with her mother, strangely absent, though there is a heavy emphasis on it. Unlike other time slip stories like Russian Doll, Last Night in Soho is unable to “go there,” meaning it is unable to really ask the big questions that the mechanical choices of the movie bring up. What we have as a result is a film that thinks it’s a film, but is rather instead a movie. And by movie I mean the kind that Werner Herzog calls “movies movies movies.” It’s a brash, slick, entertaining project that says very little. Before the finale of the movie, Ellie runs slapdash from rented room to library to party, and back to her room, and one wonders if any sort of narrative detail will come to light. It is actually shocking how little there is to the film in these parts. For opening up questions that it does not answer, a 3 out of 5 stands as middle ground.
Originality
While I can concede that Last Night in Soho feels original in aggregate, much of these elements we have seen done better. Black Swan looms large in this movie for its portrayal of a protagonist in psychosis far better than Soho. A twist murderer ending has been done better in even the most schlocky action flicks. There is something to be said for the way Ellie goes back in time, and the best parts of the film are the technical ways that Ellie and Sandie merge together. But going back in time has also been done, and better, in (as mentioned before) Russian Doll. The theme of nostalgia has been done but perhaps not with a thriller tone. Looking in retrospect, many of the touchstones of the thriller genre are unremarkable. We have a suspect who catches Ellie’s eye, only to be a red herring. The true reveal is somewhat surprising but inevitable, and Ellie’s redemption is not without its slight tinge of trouble. I think Edgar Wright wants to make films, but ends up making movies instead. And when I try to articulate why this is the case, I suppose what happens is this: every time his movies have the opportunity to take big risks with its characters, to explore some darker psychological issue, the film’s genre or structure takes over. Simon Pegg’s Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz is not an overzealous cop, and these are not accidents: it really is a larger conspiracy. The World’s End is not about a man incapable of change, it is instead a giant conspiracy of aliens desiring complacency. Baby is not a criminal, he’s simply trying to provide for his father and start a life with the beautiful Lily James. And Eloise is not a sheltered girl who has become unhinged in the wake of her mother’s death. She has a paranormal ability to see the past layered onto the present. The situation of these films and their stories are diametrically opposed to one another, and the situation wins out. The situation vindicates the characters and their behavior. This may make for fun entertainment, but they are forgettable afterward. It doesn’t always have to be this way: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is one such movie where the situation of Scott’s run in with Ramona’s evil ex-boyfriends is also an attack on Scott’s character. And it is when those two align that Scott is able not only to proclaim his affection, but gain some confidence and become an adult. So it’s clear that Edgar Wright CAN align the two features of narrative, but since then he has not. Soho’s originality stands at a 2 out of 5.
Conclusion
Hot Fuzz is one of my favorite comedies, so I have to give Edgar Wright the credit for making me laugh in the years since its release. But we should also address how far short his movies have come into achieving an exit velocity into the film art category. Hopefully, a 2.5 out of 5 for Last Night in Soho helps to explain the subtle and not so subtle problems with Edgar Wright’s work. Last Night in Soho is a visually impressive experience with a muddled theme and incoherent narrative.
