Last Night in Soho (2021)

directed by Edgar Wright

UK

117 minutes

3.5 stars out of 5

----

This is a movie that made a very strong first impression on me, and to some extent that's still the impression that I'm left with, but it's also a movie where the longer I think about it, the more flaws I see. I think I liked it as a whole more than I did when I zoomed in and started to examine it, and in the grand scheme of things I did think it was good, which is why I'm going to talk about the things I liked first. I'm going to assume we all know what the film is generally about, and I'll probably get into some minor spoilers, so be forewarned.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of why I liked this movie is that everything about the way it unfolds is so fluid. It deals with intersecting timelines and various impossible things in such a way that the veracity of what happens doesn't feel like it matters, because whether or not everything is actually happening isn't as important as the fact that the main character is experiencing it. I can't even confidently say that this is a story about time travel, because even though the main character has the inexplicable ability to see and experience events that happened several decades before her birth, it doesn't feel like there's any specific name that can be applied to that ability. I admire very much how Last Night in Soho doesn't feel a need to put a label on things and instead creates a narrative space where everything flows perfectly, no questions asked. This is a world in which the impossible doesn't feel impossible, and yet it's not an unfamiliar world or a world that requires us to suspend our disbelief, because the story is presented in such a way that all of its unreal parts fit together with the real.

That initial scene where Eloise falls asleep and enters her vision of Sandy's life in the 1960s is done so well that it almost feels like one of those long single-take scenes that leave you wondering how in the world it was done. The literal and metaphorical dance between Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy throughout the crowded environment of that shady nightclub felt so immaculate that they really did seem like facets of one character. Throughout the film, the distance between the two women fluctuates, sometimes feeling like they're a reflection of one another and sometimes like McKenzie is trapped on a roller coaster ride she no longer wants to be on. Again, at no point does any of this resemble anything I've seen before in a "time-travel" film - despite any other problems I may have had with it, this is the kind of truly inventive and fresh thing that can get me to sit down and shut up and enjoy it for two hours, and turn my brain back on afterwards.

A lot of the problems I did have with this are personal preference things, largely because I am not terribly fond of the whole '60s-throwback aesthetic that Edgar Wright seems to be fond of. While his previous films (which I have not seen, so forgive me if this is all totally wrong) aren't as explicit about it, Last Night in Soho goes whole-hog with the idolization of London at that specific time period, and this brings me to my first point against the film: That, despite the plot ostensibly being that a fairly naïve, near-sighted girl gets confronted with the "real world", the whole movie basically refuses to engage critically with the exact kind of re-appraisal of London in the '60s that it pretends to (or at least feels like it should) be about.

I don't think this movie was trying to present us a detailed listicle about all the ways London sucked back then, nor should it have, because that would have been distracting and preachy, but the main character doesn't seem like she learns anything in the end. On the one hand I did like that, because it shows her managing her unrealistic expectations while still achieving her dreams, but on the other hand... I don't know how to say this without sounding harsh, but when you think about it, Eloise doesn't personally get into any trouble that specifically pertains to London being a dangerous place. Everyone even slightly older than her seems intent on reminding her that the city is big and scary around every turn, but aside from that creepy, aggressive cabbie at the beginning and the culture shock of living in college dorms, she doesn't even remotely find herself in the kind of trouble that Sandy did in the '60s. She just kind of encounters another person's trouble as an outsider, even if she does end up personally involved. This can make her utter devotion to protecting Sandy almost feel patronizing: Here is this girl who has never been through anything trying to become the savior of another girl who is actively being abused. I absolutely don't intend to imply that you have to have been through someone's specific struggle in order to want to help them, but when you look at Last Night in Soho from a certain angle, the contrast between Eloise's relative privilege and quiet upbringing and Sandy getting deeper and deeper into the pit of desperation and abuse is quite striking, and not in a good way.

I also just feel like this movie is really reductive. I was disappointed by the end. I'm not sure what the point was in making Sandy turn out to be a serial murderer if the film was then going to turn around and still retain the "but they deserved it" message that it initially seemed like it was pushing. I guess this was another turning point in Eloise's realization that the wider world was more complicated and risky than she'd expected? Finding out that her idol and inspiration had her own dark secret? But just like with everything else, this didn't feel like it made any huge difference in the outcome.

Aesthetically this is a great film, it's very entertaining visually and Anya Taylor-Joy carries most of it. This definitely would have been worse in the hands of a different director or writer, but I just felt confused at best and disappointed at worst by a lot of the decisions made in where the narrative went. I think its worst flaw is that a complex and layered story could wind up in such a flat, one-dimensional ending.