British filmmaker Edgar Wright has positioned himself as one of the 21st century’s foremost genre-mashers. Shaun of the Dead inserted zombies into a romantic comedy template, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World blended cartoonish visual effects, insane martial arts action, and alt-rock musical numbers. Wright is probably best-known in the States for his most recent film, 2017’s Baby Driver––his least comedic work to date, fusing elements of crime capers and musicals to create a thriller that looks and feels like a music video. None of these movies are masterpieces, but they’re all endlessly entertaining thanks to Wright’s distinct style –– he consistently employs oversaturated color palettes, perfectly-timed pop needle drops, fast-paced comedic editing, and show-stopping tracking shots, giving his films a sense of energy and personality that most other contemporary crowd-pleasers sorely lack.
Focus Features has marketed Wright’s new film Last Night in Soho as a somewhat conventional horror movie. Fans of the genre will likely be disappointed in Wright’s latest effort if that’s all they expect, though, because so much of the movie’s charm and focus comes from the non-horror elements that make it so unique. The movie is a time-travel coming-of-age mystery with as many dance sequences as horror set-pieces, and though it’s not always successful, it remains a wildly engaging piece of pop entertainment.
The film follows Ellie Turner, a bright-eyed young student from the country, as she moves to London to study fashion design. Her obsession with 1960s culture and her awkward demeanor make her somewhat pathetic, but Thomasin McKenzie’s soft, fragile voice immediately ensures that we empathize with her much more than we pity her. Wright quickly establishes the harsh urban culture shock that sours Ellie’s London experience: a cabbie creepily hits on her, a roommate ejects her from their dorm to have sex, and a group of unfriendly classmates insult her looks and temperament as she covertly eavesdrops from a bathroom stall. Since university life in the big city is instantly hostile, Ellie seeks out an alternative living space, and eventually rents a room from Ms. Collins, played sternly but warmly by the late Diana Rigg.
On her first night in her new apartment, Ellie falls asleep and inadvertently retreats from the sorrows of her 21st-century loneliness––she’s transported to the mid-1960s, where she explores London’s lounge culture. The time travel mechanics here are more surreal than in typical sci-fi movies, as they situate the protagonist as a powerless, imperceptible observer who sometimes shares consciousness with Sandie, a glamorous aspiring singer played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Ellie and Sandie seem to occupy the same space and body in this perplexing dream world, and their connection is visualized by a repetitive but impressive special effect: McKenzie appears as Taylor-Joy’s reflection in mirrors as they make the same motions and talk to the same people.
Ellie awakens in the present and reluctantly returns to her dreary studies––but she makes her way back to the sixties dream world each night. The initial period sequences are impossibly glamorous: colors appear brighter, outfits look slicker, and the city seems preposterously lively and clean. There’s constant pop soundtracking that furthers the era’s upbeat energy, and Wright employs more creative camerawork and dynamic editing to enhance its dreamlike qualities.
But darkness eventually creeps into Ellie’s escapist fantasies, as she watches Sandie’s performing aspirations crushed by the sobering sexism, objectification, and outright abuse that plagued live entertainment––and suddenly, the cultural moment she’d romanticized for so long no longer seems welcoming. The lines between Ellie’s reality and dreams grow blurrier and blurrier, leading to bursts of tense paranoia and crippling anxiety, especially after she witnesses a brutal murder through Sandie’s eyes. The film reaches its stylistic peak in these moments of ambiguity––the sound design gets dizzyingly wobbly, and the visuals frequently spin and refract images like a kaleidoscope.
The film nearly implodes during the finale, which threatens to upend its entire thematic purpose. The overall movie overtly grapples with the everyday horrors of living as a woman in a violently patriarchal society, particularly in creative industries that further empower men and pit women against each other. Wright clearly wants to be taken seriously as a good-guy-ally who understands women’s pain. Yet the final act pulls a bizarre twist that comes very close to victim-blaming women––not for experiencing trauma, but for reacting too harshly after being victimized. The climactic stretch is disappointingly messy, as there’s a distinct dissonance between the twisty entertainment that it wants to provide and the moral messaging that it attempts to tack on.
Luckily, the film’s strong lead performances and commitment to bold stylization ensure that the overall project remains gripping, fun, and emotionally resonant throughout its entire runtime. Wright’s films are usually full of flaws and questionable choices, but his genre-mashing tendencies and his colorful, musical sensibilities mean that he’ll never, ever make a boring movie.