Last Night in Soho (2021) * * *

 

Directed by:  Edgar Wright

Starring:  Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Diana Rigg, Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Michael Ajao

The protagonist of Last Night in Soho, a London fashion school student named Ellie (McKenzie) dances in her bedroom to a song playing on her record player.   The entire scene suggests the movie takes place in the late 1960's, but it is indeed the present day.   In many ways, Ellie is a walking, talking anachronism.  She feels a strange, inexplicable connection to the 1960's, possibly because she can see her late mother in mirrors and in the shadows.   Ellie sets out for London to attend fashion school and doesn't fit in with her condescending classmates.   Instead of staying in the dorms, Ellie rents a top floor bedroom in the home of no-nonsense Ms. Collins (Rigg-in her final screen performance before her death in 2020).   It is here where Ellie's fascination with the 1960's takes a bizarre turn.

When Ellie falls asleep in her room, she vividly dreams she is present in late 1960's London.  She transforms (sort of) into Sandy (Taylor-Joy),  a vivacious blonde who dreams of singing stardom.  She meets the slickster Jack (Smith), who "handles" budding singers but not in ways she anticipates.   He woos Sandy, beds her, and soon turns her out into the sleazy world of prostitution.   The closest Sandy gets to singing is as a backup singer in a local musical.   The rest of her money she earns on her back.  Her world turns from hope to despair.   At times, Ellie only observes Sandy and at others she feels she is Sandy.  However, Ellie wakes up in the present day with the nightmare of Sandy's life fresh in her mind.

Each night, Ellie learns more of Sandy's story and may have even witnessed her murder at the hands of Jack.   The visions of Sandy's faceless male tricks soon haunt not just her dreams, but terrify her in her waking life as well.   Sandy's past is now a puzzle to be solved in the present.    A creepy old man (Stamp) who frequents the bar where Ellie works sure does seem like he is the aged Jack and maybe knows what exactly happened to Sandy.   Soon, the two eras converge on Ellie in a nightmarish fashion.

Last Night in Soho plays as a supernatural mystery which doesn't attempt to explain how Ellie can connect so thoroughly to events from fifty years ago.   Her grandmother understands Ellie can see her dead mother and perhaps this serves as the portal for others to reach out for Ellie's help.  The 1960's London era is vividly recreated, with a soundtrack of the time permeating the film.  McKenzie, who played the Jewish girl hidden by a Hitler Youth candidate in 2019's JoJo Rabbit, is a sympathetic hero who wishes she didn't see dead people.   Anya Taylor-Joy, fresh from her triumph in The Queen's Gambit, delivers a portrait of a young woman growing disillusioned and victimized before our very eyes.   Sandy's transformation nearly mirrors Ellie's own disillusionment with the 1960's, a period which she at first idealized but now sees how it contains as much seediness as any other time.   It was just disguised with more faux elegance and flashiness. 

Last Night in Soho is stylish, sleek, and suspenseful with plot twists that come with the territory and are more or less as logical as can be expected.   Director Wright finds a way to assemble a seemingly unrelated jumble of parts into a cohesive experience where the past bleeds sometimes gushingly into the present.