Directed by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Michael Ajao, Diana Rigg
Rated R, 116 minutes
“Last Night in Soho” is a ghost story, but Edgar Wright isn’t all that interested in ghosts. In a way, it’s of a piece with his last feature, “Baby Driver,” a heist movie that was less about heists and more about showing off the British writer-director’s taste in music. Which is to say, Wright has reached a stage in his directorial career wherein he seems more concerned with style over substance. “Last Night in Soho” may have a few good twists and nifty camera tricks up its sleeve, but it’s ultimately no greater than the sum of its parts.
Following a young fashion school student living in London for the first time, “Last Night in Soho” kicks off when the student, Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie, “Jojo Rabbit”), starts having dreams about a woman who used to live in her boarding house. The young woman in these dreams, Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy, “Emma.”), was a singer and dancer in the swinging ‘60s, confidently seeking stardom in the clubs and ballrooms of Soho. Ellie, a devotee of the styles and sounds of that era (“Guess I just like the old songs better than the stuff today,” she says casually), takes these visions as an affirmation of her own aspirations. But the visions quickly grow sinister, as Sandie, pimped out by her menacing manager-boyfriend, Jack (Matt Smith, “Doctor Who”), finds her music career sidetracked by humiliating sex work. And when these ghosts start creeping into Ellie’s waking life, they threaten to derail her budding fashion career as well.
While Ellie’s sunny view of the ‘60s—her obsession with vinyl records, her lofty idea of life in London, her framed “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” poster—is quaintly nostalgic, Sandie’s ordeal, played with a stiff upper lip and crumbling self-confidence by Anya Taylor-Joy, ruins the illusion. The trials and tribulations of these two women read like a statement of commiseration from Edgar Wright for the abuses women have had to endure for generations. Wright laments through these kindred spirits that the victims of the cruelties of history have often been young women, guilty of nothing more than pursuing their dreams.
It’s an earnest thesis statement, but it’s delivered flatly. The horror escalates throughout the film, but Ellie and Sandie are merely passive receptors for it. If Wright is making a larger statement about misogyny, it’s undercut by his dependence on a cast of characters who lack agency; his sympathy may be welcome, but his commitment is superficial. And even though Thomasin McKenzie, a skilled actress with some great performances to her name already, capably portrays Ellie’s psychotic breakdown amid all the stress of city life and school and her haunting visions, she can’t help that the role is uninteresting. As he did with Baby in “Baby Driver,” Wright defines Ellie only by her taste in music and her fandom for a bygone era, as though she has no more depth than the stickers on the inside of a high school locker.
It doesn’t help that the film is also full of plot holes and head-scratching choices, from the underdeveloped love interest, John (Michael Ajao, “Attack the Block”), who inexplicably devotes himself to Ellie despite her tendency to get him into trouble (not to mention the nonexistent chemistry between them), to the movie’s multiple plot points that strain our willing suspension of disbelief. Meanwhile, the dialogue is inconsistent, and the supporting characters are mostly caricatures, the one notable exception being Ellie’s landlady, Ms. Collins, played with aplomb by one-time Bond girl Diana Rigg in her final role (Rigg passed away last year). Even the costuming—which you’d think would stand out, given Ellie’s budding career in fashion—feels like an afterthought.
It’s this lack of focus, this lack of a defining quality, that sinks “Last Night in Soho.” Where Edgar Wright’s breakout film, 2004’s “Shaun of the Dead,” was a tightly focused mashup of zombie horror and buddy comedy, “Last Night in Soho” spreads itself thin. It’s somewhere between “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Psycho,” with a dollop of “Mean Girls” and a series of James Bond references that amount to nothing; it’s a murder mystery, albeit not until the third act; it’s supposedly a love letter to the ‘60s, but it feels more like a laundry list. Wright’s style-over-substance approach remains nice to look at, but it’s increasingly hard to watch.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 12/3/21.