Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Thomasin McKenzie’s Ellie Turner’s move to London from rural Cornwall to study fashion design does not quite as well as she hoped. Initially that’s from the overwhelming assault of the big city and the assorted arseholes that find their way there, but she seems to get some respite from her unnecessarily bitchy classmates when she leaves the hall of residence and lodges with Diana Rigg’s Ms. Collins.
However, it turns out that this just swaps a world of mundane troubles for the supernatural. It seems that Ellie has already had previous form of seeing dead people, but only her much missed mother. The vibe of Ms. Collins place is decidedly different, with her dreams seemingly transporting her to inhabit the world of Anya Taylor-Joy’s Sandie.
Seems quite cool at first, Sandie being a supremely confident go-getter in the swinging sixties, a time period Ellie seems to have more in common with than the whatever adjective we decide to call the 2020’s. My choice would be sub-optimal.
However, Soho in the sixties has a notorious dark side, and it’s not long before Sandie falls into it, the man she trusted to help her singing career, Matt Smith’s Jack, soon turning into her pimp with her life spiralling downwards into what is apparently her murder.
In her waking hours, Ellie tries desperately to find out more about Sandie and her fate, earning her a great many side-eyes particularly when she starts having to dodge the faceless ghosts of the past that have started encroaching on her reality, leading, as often happens in this kind of thing to poorly evidenced accusations and an eventual reveal of the truth of things.
Wikipedia lists this as a psychological horror, and not for the first time Wikipedia is wrong, and I wish that it wasn’t. There’s a period where this does more or less fall in line with psychological horror and it works very well. Both Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy are likeable and sympathetic in their own different ways, and Matt Smith has a blend of charisma and menace that almost made me stop thinking of him as Doctor Who. There’s also great supporting turns from Diana Rigg and Terence Stamp that adds to the mystery of it all.
However, and this will come as no surprise to anyone that’s heard out opinions on horror before, supernatural elements can do one, and there’s plenty of that in this, and by the time Ellie’s being chased around a library by what looks like dudes with tights over their faces this has gone over the cliffs into a chasm of unnecessary filler material.
Thankfully, there’s not quite enough of that nonsense in the back nine to completely spoil the good work done by the actors, which is arguably better than the script deserves, and when that’s put alongside director Edgar Wright’s traditional breakneck pacing and soundtrack choices, and stylish cinematography from Chung Chung-hoon, more known around these parts for his partnership with Park Chan-wook, well, there’s more than enough to hold my attention in Last Night in Soho, and I’m sure for anyone less philosophically opposed to horror films they’ll get even more out of it.
To sum up, minus five stars for putting Cilla Black in it.