Last Night in Soho - Cheap Thoughts

Edgar Wright has been nostalgic for the past for a while now, he is often just much more subtle about it, his work is heavily influenced by films and music of the mid-20^th century, however now he’s chosen to make it part of the text beyond mere references. Last Night in Soho presents us with that idealised rose-tinted view of a 1960s London, where the lights shined bright, the music was all grand and everyone dressed to the peak of fashion. Naturally of course this is to cover up the dark underbelly of both the social ladder of the time and now, that once you begin to climb you have the choice to carry on climbing regardless of how fatigued you are, or let go and plummet to your doom.

Wright is known as a very visually prolific filmmaker and while that is naturally still present here – every shot is filled with colour and gloss to create such a mood that can be lively and then shift to disturbing within a single movement – It is not as directly in your face as his other work. Any other Wright film you can see and know it’s him, if I did not know this was a Wright film, I never would have guessed it. Since Baby Driver he’s been peaking out of his comfort zone to experiment with other genres and with this one markedly is more subdued, he allows his shots to linger and create a discomfort, all the while making even the darkest of shots as beautiful and stylised as they can be.

There’s a fragility to what we’re watching, Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie) is a small fish forced into a very big pond, intimidating enough, but when she finds herself at the centre of attention of those much bigger fish, it becomes that much more disheartening. Even when the attention is not drawn to her, but to Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy) who Ellie voyeuristically attaches herself to and connects to her to make her dilemmas her own even when she is merely an audience member, much like us, yet also like us, and like the best films, we are not just an audience member, when a film works we are also that person on screen. Wright builds a level of dread on these two levels, we fear for Ellie to get out of the situation unscathed and yet when she is alone, surrounded by men who wish to take advantage of her, we are just as alone and vulnerable.

Wright’s attempts to stretch his legs is a very welcome change, even if there are some growing pains to come with it. Structurally this is one of Wright’s weaker scripts, missing his usual bullet proof structure and quotable dialogue, even his infamous foreshadowing – though present – is given a backseat in favour of last-minute twists & turns, very nearly becoming a film about victim blaming though thankfully dodges that bullet, yet should never have been on the firing range to begin with. It is also perhaps a bit too indulgent in the past, though it is yes critical of the cultures of the time, the emphasis on how modern day sucks just as much, except back then everything was better because they had better music and style and whatnot feels very much “Life was better in my day” nonsense many like to uphold as an undeniable fact, and certainly some people will walk away from this film with their only thought being “Yeah life was better in the 60s” despite all the murders and whatnot.

-Danny