When it comes to homage and inspiration, one can immediately find themselves coming up a cropper, trying to balance genuine nostalgia with their own ideas and concepts. Then when one is looking at a filmmaker such as Edgar Wright, who has up until this point only ever subverted the genres comedically that he has worked in – one can find a lot to worry themselves about when entering the completely horror based world of Last Night in Soho. For me it was certainly a mixed bag, but overall the viewing was a pleasurable one and a positive leaning opinion formed and only solidified over time.
First off this film can finally solidify for me the longevity and breadths of both the careers of Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor Joy, although I have loved both of their works tremendously up until this point, seeing them once again for the third/fourth/fifth time deliver a wholly different and equally impressive performance leads me to completely solidify that these are no longer ‘two actresses to keep an eye on’, but two of our finest young performers working today. Wright has all in all gathered an incredible bench of stars from eras old and new to help him tell this tale of the past and the present, with Joy, McKenzie and Matt Smith highlighting the talent of the current crop and Dianna Rigg, Terrence Stamp and a wonderfully surprising turn from Rita Tushingham showing the haunted history of another world in their eyes and their words. Absolutely everybody involved in-front of the camera delivers, aswell a lot of great work behind the camera also. Wright seems almost unable to make a film that’s uninteresting visually. Time after time the camera and the editing of Paul Machliss bring the two worlds of past and present together in a dynamic and often very visceral fashion leading the viewer to fall head over heels in love with the nostalgia that McKenzie’s Eloise so desperately admires herself. This is bolstered in no small part by the cinematography of the incredibly colourful neon lens of Chung-hoon Chung. When Soho it as its best, it is placing these wonderfully versatile actors headfirst into the blissfully horrific and beautifully terrifying world that Wright creates as playgrounds for them. However there are unfortunately many times where Soho is at its worst.
When it comes to the films downfalls, it’s almost entirely in the script department. Wright co-wrote this film with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, known for her script for 1917, a film not known for its script (despite incredibly being Oscar nominated for it). When it comes to fun and believable dialogue, whether it be in the films far too relatable depiction of university culture for an outsider, or even in touching moments shared by McKenzie and Michael Ajao’s love interest John (who does a lovely performance here). However ultimately the film totally falls flat on a first watch from just being far too predictable. As a matter of fact when I saw the first trailer I guessed one of the final major turns, thinking that this would be an 1hr 10min reveal, only to red herring us and propel us into the final genuine twist of the film. Unfortunately this was not the case and every turn and twist along the way was painfully obvious and was foreseen far too early in the proceedings. The only twist that I didn’t guess was due to the film lying to us. Whereas throughout the rest of the film Eloise’s visions have always been the exact truth as we view them, when it relates to a major twist we are presented a false premonition, where we see not the truth at all. Actually this reveal really infuriated me as a viewer and unfortunately left me cold for the rest of the screening. As boring as it is a thing to say, I really am a stickler for rules in films and media. If a film sets its rules and then changes or ignores them, it just shines through as poor writing and film-making unfortunately. It’s these sorts of things that can sink a film like this for me. Fortunately the direction and performances were so stellar that one is willing to make certain allowances. I keep saying ‘unfortunately’, one can only conclude that this is down to a love of Wrights entire oeuvre up until this point, aswell as a fundamental enjoyment of a lot of the elements within this very film, however, unfortunately, the parts do no equal a whole this time around.
A delightfully visually dynamic 7/10 horror, which for me unfortunately was just a touch too overly predictable. When a film is so heavily ‘inspired by’ it can frequently fall unfortunately uninspired. Soho walks a line between genuinely original and overly clichéd, with an ultimate climax that really was just far too predictable and left me cold. Great performances and an array of intriguing visuals keep this film afloat, but when it comes to plotting, deceptions of the audience and obvious twists do lead this Wright horror venture to fall pretty low in the overall personal rankings for me.
P.S. RIP dear Dianna Rigg, your final performance is a sublime send-off to a stellar career with my personal favourite being of course your deliciously devilish turn as Edward Lionheart’s daughter in the always wonderful British comedy horror classic Theatre of Blood. Rest in Peace.
SPOLIER P.P.S. I’m sorry, but how on earth do you expect your twist to work when Sam Claflin is doing a completely spot-on spitting image impersonation of Terrence Stamp? It’s a great one scene performance with a stellar impersonation, but why have it, when it’s going to completely ruin your final twist?
- - Thomas Carruthers
 – Review){kind=link}
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