Review of “Last Night in Soho”

Review+of+Last+Night+in+Soho

Jack Armstrong, Staff Writer

If I had to pick my favorite director in the industry as an avid film watcher, it would no doubt be Edgar Wright. In my personal opinion, Wright has the art of creating a film down to a tee. He is so intricate with all of the movies he makes, which are mainly comedies. Movies like Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, are all that I absolutely adore. In fact, his most recent film prior to Last Night in Soho, Baby Driver, happens to be my favorite movie of all time. So, when I heard that Edgar Wright was going to be stepping out of his comfort zone and creating a psychological horror film inspired by 60’s black and white horror movies, I was both surprised and absolutely excited. Every time the trailer for Last Night in Soho appeared on my screen, I would never skip it due to my genuine interest to see this film. As such, I had extremely high expectations walking into the theater. My favorite director, who made my favorite movie of all time, making a horror film? I knew it would not be a letdown.

Fortunately, I am thrilled to say that this movie met pretty much all of my expectations. It was an unmatched experience. The acting, story, cinematography, editing, sound design, and every other aspect of this film were a home run in my book. The story follows Eloise, a fashion designer thrust into a brand new fashion college to follow her dreams. After an incident involving her dorm roommate and her friends, she goes to live in an old raggedy house with an old lady for rent to get away from them. In this town, she dreams of life in the 1960’s and things begin to unravel very fast. I’m keeping the story explanation very vague so you can enter the movie with wonder and mystery of what’s going to happen. The characters in this story are all very appealing and you can easily connect to the main characters here. The acting for these characters felt nothing short of perfect. In particular, Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Matt Smith all gave stellar performances. Performances, I believe, that are Oscar nomination worthy.

Where this movie really leaves its mark is with its cinematography and editing. Wright was very ambitious with his camera angles in this film, leaving the film feeling like it had its own style, particularly its mind bending and tricky camera angles. Something that I don’t usually highlight when watching a film is the color choice that is used in the editing, but I believe it is important to discuss it in this review. This movie is very colorful, with a lot of neon red, green, and purple. But, bringing up a point previously, this gives the movie its own style and the choice of color in this movie always feels right. It feels natural for the world that this movie is trying to set up and you find yourself unbelievably invested in what is going to happen to these characters.

I did say though, that it met “pretty much” all of my expectations. This movie had one thing that I wasn’t terribly thrilled about: the writing. This is where my expectations being so high probably came into play. Wright’s previous screenplays, particularly Baby Driver, had an amazing screenplay. I wouldn’t change anything about that film’s writing. Last Night in Soho’s writing was in no way bad, in fact the writing in the film was great. Though, it didn’t necessarily reach Baby Driver levels of amazing. I wish that either there were some little tweaks here and there, or Edgar Wright went ahead and wrote the whole movie himself, like how he did with Baby Driver. Despite that, this movie was an absolute blast through from start to finish and there is an underlying message that this movie has throughout that I unfortunately can’t highlight without ruining the story. If you are planning on going to the theater or relaxing on your couch any time soon, I cannot recommend Last Night in Soho enough. It was an amazing experience that I will rewatch for many years to come.