Last Night in Soho review: Nightmare off Carnaby Street

Shaun of the Dead. Hot Fuzz. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Baby Driver. Ant-Man, almost anyway. The work of filmmaker Edgar Wright is contagiously and memorably energetic, powered by a combination of visual flair and pitch perfect use of popular songs. Wright’s latest, Last Night in Soho, is no different, although the psychological horror thriller is easily the darkest and most serious effort from the writer-director.  

In Last Night in Soho, Jojo Rabbit’s Thomasin McKenzie plays Ellie, an aspiring fashion designer who moves from her grandmother’s quiet country home to London to study. Ellie is a shy outsider who feels out of place among her peers. Her fixation on the Swinging Sixties doesn’t help with her integration, but it does mean she’s ecstatic when she finds a bedsit in Soho that hasn’t been renovated since her favourite era.

There’s something else about Ellie – she has a barely-controlled supernatural “gift”. She sometimes plugs into the energy of her environment, and in her Soho residence that means dreaming about Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wannabe singer in the 1960s, who falls under the spell of Matt Smith’s smooth manager, Jack. It’s the ultimate wish fulfilment, but as Sandie’s career path turns dark, the nightmare starts literally reaching across into Ellie’s reality. Also starring are acting veterans Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg in her final big screen role.

As expected of Wright, aided by Cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, Last Night in Soho oozes visual style. The film is typically at its most striking during the scenes Ellie is transported to the past, recreating London’s bustling inner city – from the glitzy club interiors to the neon-splashed night time streets – in meticulous detail, while the camera is allowed to roam in long unbroken takes.

What Last Night in Soho does best of all is capture the shifting, trippy perspective of dreams. Sometimes Ellie is Sandie; other times she is looking on through mirrors or standing in the background of scenes. The switches are continual, seamless, and typically accomplished through the use of practical effects and clever camera work instead of CGI.

It’s exhilarating stuff, and the emotional impact is sustained as Sandie (and Ellie) slip behind the curtain and discover the sordid, exploitative side of Soho that nostalgia has largely erased. These scenes are an uncomfortable watch, as squirm-inducing for the audience as they are for Ellie, who either lives them out, or gazes on passive and powerless.

The problem is that Last Night in Soho is only punctuated by these dazzling returns to yesteryear. By its third act, the film is primarily set in the present, with an increasingly hysterical Ellie running from ghosts and genre tropes. There’s a decades-old mystery to solve, jump scares, plot twists… and some very potent nightmare fuel, to be fair. But even if the rehash of dozens of other, similar movies is intentional (which seems likely), it’s just not as engaging as the film’s surreal moments of “time travel.”

Further pulling you out of the movie is how everyone is so consistently concerned about, and kind to, Ellie during her apparent breakdown – which includes public, destructive and dangerous acts. Then again, maybe this lack of credibility has less to do with the film, and more to do with being a viewer who has lived through two years of selfishness and self-absorption on a global scale.

Last Night in Soho isn’t Edgar Wright’s best but it’s visually striking, inventive and memorable. Plus, it shows a filmmaker willing to explore new territory and take risks. Even when results do fall short, the daring to try new things is appreciated.