Starring: Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Diana Rigg, Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 116 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2021
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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An aspiring fashion designer is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters a dazzling wannabe singer. But the glamour is not all it appears to be and the dreams of the past start to crack and splinter into something darker.
Welcome to the imagination of Edgar Wright. For those who have been there before (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver), they will be eager to return. For those not familiar with Edgar Wright, they might well be puzzled – and intrigued.
Wright has co-written and directed this film but has also selected a playlist with many of the popular songs of the mid-1960s. These include songs from artists such as Cilla Black, Petula Clark, Sandie Shaw and, of course, The Beatles. They play throughout the film, providing mood and background to the characters and the situations.
And this is important. While the main action takes place in the present, the film returns time and time again to London in the emerging swinging ’60s, the streets and lights of Soho, the clubs (many euphemistically called Gentlemen’s Clubs), and a huge cinema hoarding advertising Sean Connery as James Bond in Thunderball.
In the present, we are introduced to a young woman who has finished high school and is going to London to become a fashion designer. She lives in Cornwall, somewhat sure of herself there, but immediately finding herself out of her depth in London, mocked for her provincial accent and dress, by the Mean Girls at her accommodation and the school. She is Eloise Turner, Ellie, with a complex performance by New Zealander McKenzie. Ellie does well in class but wants to get away from the students, so answers an advertisement for a bedsit, encountering Miss Collins, an elderly veteran of Soho, who welcomes Ellie. Miss Collins is played by Diana Rigg in her final role, initially seeming a comparatively subordinate character but becoming key by the end. It was Diana Rigg’s last film and this film is dedicated to her.
Rigg flourished in the mid-1960s on stage and on the television, notably in The Avengers. But it was also the period of stardom for Rita Tushingham and Terence Stamp. Tushingham plays Ellie’s solicitous grandmother, while Stamp is a mysterious ageing character who frequents a Soho diner.
That establishes the basis for the drama – but, Ellie’s mother was psychic and so is Ellie. Her elaborate dreams take her back to the 1960s, where she encounters would-be singer and dancer, Sandie, another strong performance by Taylor-Joy. Wright uses the device of mirrors, Ellie looking into the mirror and seeing Sandie, and many variations on this alter ego experience, Ellie becoming Sandie at times. Sandie, who is ambitious, is under the tutelage of Jack, (Smith), a manager who ultimately exploits her with the so-called gentlemen at the clubs. This builds to conflict and confrontation.
And, in fact, Wright goes back to his horror background and the zombie-like creatures from Shaun of the Dead, changing the tone of Ellie’s nightmares, and her identification with Sandie becoming more real. Ellie begins tries to investigate Sandie’s fate with the help of a sympathetic fellow student in design, John, (Ajao), who falls foul of Miss Collins.
And with this kind of imagination, the end has to be seen to be believed – twists, horror, even conflagration. And, if this review arouses curiosity, then it is probably best to go to see Last Night in Soho.
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