Last Night in Soho Review
This weekend, the newest film from Edgar Wright, Last Night in Soho drops in theaters. This is one that I didn’t know much about until the first trailer dropped, and I thought it looked interesting. As a point of reference, I haven’t seen any Edgar Wright movies before this. No particular reason why, it just never happened. So how is this movie? Let’s get started!
The Good:
For me the best thing about this movie is that Edgar Wright creates this unique movie with great direction. This is one of the best directed 2021 movies, the way Wright builds tension in certain scenes is great. Even when it’s just two people talking back and forth it’s done in this way that is creepy and you aren’t sure what is going to happen next. But even the way that Wright uses mirrors in this movie is so unique and clever and it just makes for this experience of a movie. This is one of these movies that it’s really hard to say what it’s like because it’s not like anything you’ve seen before.
Like I just said, but this is a movie that does a great job of building tension. As soon as the dreams start and you go on this adventure you are on the edge of your seat waiting to see what is going to happen next. This is probably the 2021 that builds in the most amount of tension for me, and that is very much a positive. As you move into the second half of the movie and some of the answers are given as to what is going on and who certain characters are, you don’t know what is going to happen next.
Wright is also able to keep the film’s tone in check. Like the first act of the movie is a pretty simple small town girl moves to the big city type story. The second act is this dark mystery thriller, and then the third act is this horror movie. But it all feels like the same movie, not one part of this movie felt like three separate movies.
Also, this is a movie that does a great job of transporting you back to London in the 1960s. With the music that is playing to the production design to the costume design you feel like you are in the 1960s. I don’t know how much Oscar love this movie will get, but I hope it gets production or costume design...and cinematography.
Finally, this is a movie with a great cast, everybody in here is giving these great performances. Taking the charge is Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy. McKenzie does this great job of playing this young naive girl that wants to pursue a career in fashion design, she’s great as that. But as the dreams go on you see that she can act and play the same character so well. But the real stand-out here is Anya Taylor-Joy who is one of these actresses that is making her mark on Hollywood. Last year she starred in The Queen’s Gambit. And in this movie she plays this mysterious beautiful girl in the 1960s that you don’t know a lot about, and Anya plays that very well.
The Bad:
The big thing here is there is one plot twist in the second half of the movie that was a bit...predictable. Even though I don’t think predictable is the right word to call it. But I didn’t see it coming but I knew that something was up. So I don’t know how to describe it, but it did fall flat for me.
Also, there are some characters that are set up in the first half of the movie. And it seems like they are going to be important characters, but they aren’t. They disappear about half way through the movie, and it felt like you could have cut them from the movie and it wouldn’t have changed.
Final Thoughts: In general, I really dug Last Night in Soho. Edgar Wright crafted this engaging and mysterious thriller with horror thrown into the mix but that’s also a period piece. The cast top to bottom is pretty great. I just with that one twist was changed a bit, and some of the characters felt a bit unnecessary. But like I said, this is a great movie. And if you like a dark mystery thriller with horror elements this is a movie for you.
The Score: 8.8/10 (B+)
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