Review of Last Night in Soho (2021) by Xv_ — 31 Oct 2021

Last Night in Soho tells the story of Ellie, an aspiring fashion designer that moves from the countryside of England to a prestigious fashion school in London, soon after she finds out that the fashion life isn't as glamorous as she thought and that kind of stuff. The thing is that Ellie may or may not have some kind of supernatural power that connects her with the past and has vivid visions from it, she then connects with a mysterious woman from the 60s called Sandy, and stuff starts to get more intriguing as Ellie unravels Sandy's past.

I wasn't sure of what Soho will be about since the first time I heard from it, then the first teaser dropped and after watching it I still wasn't that sure, looked like a horror movie but not that horrific, however, I decided to forget about that trailer and watch the movie almost with zero expectative of what will come, besides if director's Edgar Wright releases a movie I will go to watch it no questions asked. The result of the movie is quite mixed in my opinion, for every cool idea, there is always a not-so-well-done execution. Being a horror movie (or at least it is pointed more into that realm), its horror beats aren’t that tense or scary, it kind of has this classic movie horror approach with the “Wright’s” energy in the editing and the mood and some instances work well and many others not. At some point, there is the usage of supernatural or horror imagery and the result is awfully bad, it looks very CGish, fake, and uninspired that it is hard to think that someone approved that. The flow of the movie goes back and forth between the everyday life of Ellie to the every nightlife of Sandy to let us know how they’re developing and how Ellie develops her character while being influenced by Sandy, by the end this device gets old and it makes the movie feel repetitive.

Every actor did an amazing job, main stars Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy deliver just the right notes whenever they are on the screen, Thomasin has this almost angel-like but human delivery that in other hands would definitely go wrong and every time Anya appeared she steal the scene with her energy and charm. The same goes for the supporting cast, every single one of them made their characters flesh out just right, the only problem is that the movie wasn’t good enough.

On the other side, I think this must be the most visually striking movie from Wright to date, it has a rich scheme of contrasts, colors that complement its compositions which are very pretty for most of its entirety, visually, it rivals and even surpasses The Neon Demon, they aren’t similar movies but they have similar stuff going on so it is easy to compare them at least in a superficial way.

Its licensed music is noteworthy, as some of the scenes seem to have been directly influenced by many of these songs, and these particular scenes are the ones that shine the most, they feel like little music videos with high production and artistic values to them, sadly, its original score isn’t as good, it is more notorious when there is something more serious or sad going on, and a generic trailer quiet but moody keyboard piano kicks in, it makes the atmosphere feel the same as any other studio horror movie.

After watching Baby Driver I was expecting to see Edgar Wright’s newest movie, as I consider Baby Driver as Wright’s best movie to date. Last Night in Soho, wasn’t the most terrible film ever made or anything but it has a lot of issues that I think if avoided would make for a way better movie, although, even when it feels longer than it should it certainly makes an impression.