Edgar Wright tries his hand at throwback thrills in the flawed, stylish Last Night In Soho
Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy star in the writer-director’s stab at straightforward horror
Film Reviews Last Night in Soho
After dancing around the genre for decades, Edgar Wright has finally attempted a straightforward horror-thriller. Yet even as he moves away from parodies like his 2004 breakout hit Shaun Of the Dead, the British writer-director retains an affinity for pastiche. Set alternately in present-day Soho and in the semi-mythical “swinging London” of the 1960s, Wright’s new movie, Last Night In Soho, draws inspiration from cinematic styles popular half a century ago.
Chief among these is the “woman losing her grip on reality” trope popularized by Roman Polanski’s 1965 film Repulsion. But Wright also incorporates elements of the sexy Italian murder mysteries known as giallo. (He’s certainly got the Dario Argento-style colored lighting down.) It can be truly excruciating to litigate the boundaries of genre. So let’s just say that Last Night In Soho is giallo in at least one big respect: Like many of those films, it starts off with a strong concept, then crumbles when it’s time to move beyond striking imagery and get down to the more functional aspects of storytelling.
Soho, which Wright cowrote with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917), is also the writer-director’s first film with a female lead. One might say it actually has two leads, but the audience’s point of identification is Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), a timid country mouse from Cornwall who’s obsessed with the ’60s and dreams of becoming a fashion designer. It’s not clear if Eloise has the gift of second sight or is simply burdened by her family history, but it’s established early on that she sees visions of her mother, who died by suicide when Eloise was just a little girl. That’s one reason why her grandmother (Rita Tushingham) worries about her as she runs off to London in pursuit of her heart’s desire. Another is that “the city isn’t safe for a young girl,” particularly a naive one.
Eloise gets a lesson in this early on, in the form of a lecherous cab driver who’s a little too interested in the exact location of her dormitory. Fitting in at design school is a struggle as well, given that her roommate, Jocasta (Synnøve Karlsen), is a pushy mean girl. Jocasta’s cutting remarks and callous disregard prompt Eloise to use the last of her scant resources to find some off-campus housing—namely, a bedsit lent out by the motherly Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg, in her final screen role), who hasn’t updated the attic room in her creaky old house in decades. Which, of course, is just the way Eloise likes it.
Soon after, our young heroine begins having vivid, intoxicating dreams that transport her back to 1966. Part time travel, part haunting, Eloise’s nightly visions connect her to a previous resident of her room, Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a glamorous aspiring singer who has all the confidence and charm Eloise lacks. At first, Eloise can’t wait to fall asleep, savoring the opportunity to strut through lavish nightclubs in the fashions she’s been daydreaming about all her life. Enhanced by some inventive camerawork from Wright—between this film and Candyman, it’s been a good year for clever mirror shots—the sequences are pure wish fulfillment, for character and audience alike.
This portion of the film unfolds a bit like the recent Disney live-action origin story Cruella, in the sense that it uses London in the ’60s as a playground for modern viewers longing for a more “authentic” aesthetic era. Wright has better and more focused taste, however, dropping in twee jangle-pop and kitschy top-40 belters—Petula Clark’s “Downtown” plays a major role in the story—to enhance the mood or create ironic contrast where necessary. Veteran costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux also does eye-popping work, outfitting Sandie in groovy crochet, billowing chiffon, go-go boots, and a white vinyl trench coat Eloise eventually dons in the present.
Soon enough, however, Sandie’s suave “manager,” Jack (Matt Smith), begins to show his true, violent face, and Sandie/Eloise’s dream life turns into a sordid, violent nightmare. As Sandie’s dilemma deepens, Wright incorporates some chilling horror elements, like transparent male figures whose faces are constantly shifting, a visual manifestation of the film’s rather heavy-handed theme of the ubiquity of sexual violence. These hulking phantoms, murmuring “that’s such a pretty name” as they hover over Eloise’s sleeping body, could be anybody. And by the film’s logic, they’re essentially everybody: an omnipresent, ambient male threat. It’s possible here to admire Wright’s good intentions and still wonder if there’s something a little superficial about his depiction of the danger women in his audience acutely understand.
And for all the attention Wright pays to costumes and sets, he can be oblivious about the implications of his imagery. Certainly, neither he nor Wilson-Cairns seem to have considered them in regards to a harrowing aborted sex scene where Eloise conflates the predatory ghosts of the past with the man she’s brought home in the present, classmate and love interest John (Michael Ajao). The sequence is masterfully edited and staged to maximize audience discomfort, which only enhances the careless optics of putting a Black actor in this scenario—especially given how Last Night In Soho generally uses Ajao’s character and then puts him aside until he’s needed again.
It’s not the only fumble: A desperate third-act narrative twist doesn’t totally undermine the film’s feminist agenda, but it does leave a bitter aftertaste. The larger problem here lies in the shallow characterizations. Perhaps if there was more to Sandie than victimhood and fabulous dresses, and more complexity to Eloise’s motivations, these stumbling blocks would be more easily cleared. But as in Wright’s last film, Baby Driver, the characters are shiny objects first and people second—a choice that assures that Last Night In Soho’s merits are almost entirely on a surface level. For Wright, dialing back the jokes shouldn’t have to mean dialing back the humanity as well.
119 Comments
But as in Wright’s last film, Baby Driver, the characters are shiny objects first and people secondWell I freaking loved Baby Driver so I’m still hyped for this.
I’ll definitely watch SoHo as soon as possible, but I agree with Rife on Baby Driver. It’s a lot of slickness, and I didn’t feel there was much that was intriguing about Baby. Deborah felt paper thin, as did a lot of the other characters.
Wright is following in Wes Anderson’s footsteps, where his visuals are top notch, but his films live and die based on the co-writer.
And perhaps the casting? Wright has a very special magic with the Cornetto group that seems missing in PILGRIM and DRIVER. Those other casts are great, but the films – for me – feel a tad unmoored.
I thought the Scott Pilgrim cast was noticeably great even before most of their careers just blew up. Baby Driver’s Elgort is a different story, and was a huge weakness in that movie. I just don’t like him much, maybe irrationally so, but others apparently do including Stevie Spielberg. Ansel…he’s so (inexplicably) hot right now.
For me I’d swap Pilgrim and World’s End. It seemed like a great cast and they had pretty good chemistry with each other in Pilgrim— but it has gotten a little distracting to me how non-white and non-male characters are either ciphers or non-entities in a lot of Wright’s things. Like in World’s End it was a nice touch to finally swap up the Frost/Pegg dynamic and Rosamund Pike is fun playing against her typical type— but she doesn’t really have much else to do, periodically disappears from the movie, and effectively is a bit of a Smurfette love interest trophy.I feel like Pilgrim slightly sidesteps that since even if not every female character got a lot of screentime, there were whichever books were out by then and the author’s collaboration to help flesh out their backgrounds. (And with Spaced, Daisy felt pretty well-rounded with Jessica Hynes co-writing, but even Twist or the second season love interest seemed a little less fleshed out.)
Edgar Wright has many shortcomings as a filmmaker, but I wouldn’t call casting one of them. Watching Scott Pilgrim it’s crazy to think that Michael Cera was the big name when it came out (besides Jason Schwartzman, of course). Also, the fight scenes in Scott Pilgrim are staged with Michael Cera on the left side of the screen and his opponent on the right side, like like P1 / CPU in a game. I’d go to bat for the movie on that point alone.
Twist all but disappeared from Spaced’s second series. Did the actress go on maternity leave or something?
It’s not just the casting, but the fact that Simon Pegg was the co-writer of the trilogy. I think Scott Pilgrim is better than The World’s End (which I considered a disappointing end to a great trilogy). But Scott Pilgrim had a co-writer as well. Baby Driver was all Wright (but not alright), and I think it revealed his deficiencies as a screenwriter. He really needs a collaborator to make him think more about subtext. He excels when someone else handles the subtext in the script, and he can concentrate on the visual aspects.Scott Pilgrim reminded me a lot of Spaced, with a more surreal world, and episodic structure. It also had a similar dynamic between the two male leads (Michael Cera and Kieren Culkin) that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have. It was definitely different (and less central than the love story), but Baby Driver’s weird loner is maybe what makes it especially seem like an outlier. I haven’t seen the Sparks Brothers doc, but I think it’s no coincidence that he again went for a male duo. I’m very interested to see how he manages a female lead (or is it a female duo? They seem to be possibly the same person).
I believe Baby Driver was also an idea/screenplay Wright came up with some time ago and returned to once he got the money and ability to make it. Which is not necessarily a bad thing but it’s really obvious how juvenile the movie is next to the Cornetto movies, in particular World’s End, and even Scott Pilgrim, which handles arrested development (and not just Michael Cera) better.
Baby Driver exists more in the real world, lacking any fantastical elements, and being basically a crime movie. Something so down to earth can only seem silly in Wright’s hands.
Yeah it always felt the Wright/Pegg crew was a perfect combination of styles/attitudes, I’ve loved everything they’ve done together.. However seperately it’s pretty different. Wright’s solo stuff always feels a bit style with no substance, everything is very cool and visually exciting but I don’t care about the characters or what they’re doing in the slightest. However then the stuff written by just Pegg/Frost whilst somewhat having real emotions and characters that at least feel people never quite has that spark and tends to just feel a bit derivative and by the numbers.Spaced is also still my absolutely favourite (although it’s probably affected by nostalgia) and that seemed like what Jessica Hynes brought to the table added even more depth to what they were doing. Definitely seems like that crew share enough sensibilities that adding more voices strengthens the material rather than muddying it.
What Anderson movies have died because of their cowriter?Wilson co-wrote Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and Tenenbaums.Baumbach co-wrote Fantastic Mr. Fox and Life Aquatic.Coppola & Schwartzman co-wrote Darjeeling and Isle of Dogs.Coppola also co-wrote Moonrise Kingdom. Hugo Guinness has a story credit on Grand Budapest.Coppola, Schwartzman, and Guinness all have a story credit on French Dispatch.What’s the magic system here? Unless you happen to *really* dislike Darjeeling, Dogs, and Moonrise, and somewhat dislike French Dispatch, in a way that you could say “oh, Roman Coppola is the problem,” it seems to me about as meaningless as saying “oh, the ones where Schartzman has at least 10 lines are worse” or “I can’t stand the ones with Edward Norton.”
I kind of agree with the sentiment about Anderson and his co-writers. For me it’s more of Wilson vs. Not-Wilson. I didn’t think any of Anderson’s movies topped his output with Owen Wilson until Grand Budapest. I haven’t seen Isle of Dogs or French Dispatch yet so maybe those continue in the same vein. I hope so because that’d mean they’re great movies.
I suppose I’m exaggerating. No Wes Anderson movie has ever died. I like them all, but I feel like his earlier work portrays emotions more naturalistically, and I prefer that. The Coppola stuff feels colder, and the greater artifice of the later films just amplifies that. Although I felt the same about The Grand Budapest Hotel, so I guess it’s not Coppola specifically, but maybe the lack of the Wilson or Baumbach. Moonrise Kingdom almost felt like an early Anderson film, but it was sort of like seeing the younger versions of the Tenenbaum kids without seeing their adult catharsis. I haven’t seen French Dispatch yet.But would you agree that Wright needs a collaborator? I thought Baby Driver was as much a theme park ride as any Marvel movie, and about as deep. It seemed like he would rather have been making a mix tape than writing a character.
Remember, SoHo’s in New York! The London area is simply Soho. Picky picky, I know, sorry.
Good to know. Thanks!
Beat me to it.
Last Night in SoHo: Eloise wants to buy cheap jeans at Uniqlo or Zara but is overwhelmed by the seething crowds of wide-assed tourists and the smell of burnt roasted nut vendors. Soon, she’s haunted by visions of coked-out loft-squatter performance artists from the 1970s and the mournful phantom of the shuttered Dean & Deluca on Prince and Broadway
“Fuck it,” she thinks. “I’ll just go see the Mountain Goats at the Bowery Ballroom.”
Baby Driver would have made a great short film but there wasn’t enough content there for a feature length movie. Both the story and the characters were non-existent; you’re really only watching it for the action set pieces which weren’t *that* great.
I’d challenge anyone to assign Baby a single personality trait besides “cool.” It’s frankly difficult to trust a filmmaker who gets total creative freedom and then goes with such a blank slate of a protagonist.
I’m not taking on that challenge. It would have been a nice music video, but it’s so very empty. Shaun in the ridiculous (in a great way) Shaun of the Dead was so much more real than Baby.
It *was* a nice music video! I also still stand by Baby would have been better played by Noel Fielding, and never acknowledging a 40-something Brit playing a kid from Atlanta.
I’d challenge anyone to assign Baby a single personality trait besides “cool.” Concerned stepson, constantly weighted down by the anxiety of his debt, terrified of these seasoned killers he’s forced to shepherd around, enamored by his new girlfriend, haunted by his parents’ deaths, arrested to the point where he keeps eating like a child at the diner where his mom worked…do I need to keep going?
These are not personality traits. These are plot points in the movie.
These are not personality traits. These are plot points in the movie.That…makes no sense. If you didn’t like Baby Driver that’s fine but don’t try to twist the meaning of words to justify your dislike.
They didn’t. You listed plot points, not personality traits.
Yeah I agree, The others telling me how bad and lacking in nuance Baby Driver is then to think in my head, was the nuance too nuanced in a movie fooling you into thinking its all cool show boating while having some kid literally crazy cool headed at driving, constantly tittering and nervous cause he’s scared of being killed by his handler. The overarching sadness he feels and arrested development was spelled out. Maybe i’m missing something and all this was too on the nose and that’s what people meant by it is lacking anything to say. I also find that if a movie is stylish people condemn it as not being deep. Deep you cant be fast paced, deep ya gotta be plotting and have scenery chewing landscapes and lack of action. It’s all strange. Baby driver is the 7/10 or so that it has as an consensus on metacritic, never loved it and wanted to hate it actually before watching. It’s just a nicely edited, ok story that is generic and crumbles under a spicey last act, but it has the acting and fun of a nice quick paced movie. It doesn’t deserve this hate as if it was offensive in some way I’m missing. Maybe the too cool for school trailer, (that got me as well into disliking it). and what’s with hating on a guy for trying to do a feminist movie cause they included real life issues that are difficult to discuss but occur nonetheless. It’s like the whole hush hush lowers discourse in what we should be discussing. Men should know they can intentionally or unintentionally scare women. Same as men can be fearful of other men and so on.
Yeah I agree, The others telling me how bad and lacking in nuance Baby Driver is then to think in my head, was the nuance too nuanced in a movie fooling you into thinking its all cool show boating while having some kid literally crazy cool headed at driving, constantly tittering and nervous cause he’s scared of being killed by his handler. The overarching sadness he feels and arrested development was spelled out. Maybe i’m missing something and all this was too on the nose and that’s what people meant by it is lacking anything to say. I also find that if a movie is stylish people condemn it as not being deep. Deep you cant be fast paced, deep ya gotta be plotting and have scenery chewing landscapes and lack of action. It’s all strange. Baby driver is the 7/10 or so that it has as an consensus on metacritic, never loved it and wanted to hate it actually before watching. It’s just a nicely edited, ok story that is generic and crumbles under a spicey last act, but it has the acting and fun of a nice quick paced movie. It doesn’t deserve this hate as if it was offensive in some way I’m missing. Maybe the too cool for school trailer, (that got me as well into disliking it). and what’s with hating on a guy for trying to do a feminist movie cause they included real life issues that are difficult to discuss but occur nonetheless. It’s like the whole hush hush lowers discourse in what we should be discussing. Men should know they can intentionally or unintentionally scare women. Same as men can be fearful of other men and so on.
Yeah I agree, The others telling me how bad and lacking in nuance Baby Driver is then to think in my head, was the nuance too nuanced in a movie fooling you into thinking its all cool show boating while having some kid literally crazy cool headed at driving, constantly tittering and nervous cause he’s scared of being killed by his handler. The overarching sadness he feels and arrested development was spelled out. Maybe i’m missing something and all this was too on the nose and that’s what people meant by it is lacking anything to say. I also find that if a movie is stylish people condemn it as not being deep. Deep you cant be fast paced, deep ya gotta be plotting and have scenery chewing landscapes and lack of action. It’s all strange. Baby driver is the 7/10 or so that it has as an consensus on metacritic, never loved it and wanted to hate it actually before watching. It’s just a nicely edited, ok story that is generic and crumbles under a spicey last act, but it has the acting and fun of a nice quick paced movie. It doesn’t deserve this hate as if it was offensive in some way I’m missing. Maybe the too cool for school trailer, (that got me as well into disliking it). and what’s with hating on a guy for trying to do a feminist movie cause they included real life issues that are difficult to discuss but occur nonetheless. It’s like the whole hush hush lowers discourse in what we should be discussing. Men should know they can intentionally or unintentionally scare women. Same as men can be fearful of other men and so on.
“punchable”
Character doesn’t necessarily have to be the be-all and end-all of a film.
The cold open first scene and credits sequence set a pace that any movie would struggle to maintain. Still, one of the most straight-up entertaining movies of the last several years.
Baby Driver was a movie that I had high expectations for and wanted to like more than I did…but yeah, a second viewing really showed how it was all pretty much window dressing. The weakest of all Wright films.
Baby Driver was an action movie musical. This is a horror drama. I don’t think they’re really very similar in this regard.
When the lead character is the least interesting thing in your movie, that’s a problem. See also: Solo.
See also Scott Pilgrim.
Paper thin is giving her too much credit.
The ending totally fell apart, with characters making decisions that made no sense and completely contradicted their previously established personalities. And Lily James’s character was a vacant cipher of a waste.
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This is classic fan gymnastics. Just watch the damn movie to find out what you think of it and stop twisting criticism into praise.
This is a weirdly angry response to that post
Consider it a roll-up of all my frustration at people who do this ad nauseum. Like, why read words if you’re going to twist them to fit your own ideas anyway?
Yeah, fuck them for remaining hopeful and positive despite a not great review
whoosh
Thanks, I’ll get right on that.
Baby driver is awful.
When I discovered there’s a lot of disdain for Baby Driver I was gobsmacked. HOW?! That movie is damn near perfect! How could there be anything but praise?!
I mean…are you kidding?
Eh, it’s ok. I kind of needed more that just Eloise to be a fully fleshed out character. It’s pretty, vacant.
Casting Rita Tushingham, Diana Rigg, and Terence Stamp in a movie partly set in 1960s London is some quality stunt casting. Anyway, I was somewhat mixed on Baby Driver so I won’t rush to this one, but I’m sure it’ll be worth catching eventually.
The casting is excellent
Stamp still has it
Joy and McKenzie give it loads
Rigg is just as she should be
The film is gorgeous and it has plenty of scares
But the third act is borderline embarrassing tbh
It feels like something a studio finished for him, even though I know that’s not the case
Yeah for a second it felt like it might have a quieter more introspective ending and I wasn’t sure if I might’ve preferred that one to the flashy one we got. It might’ve seemed more realistic?
Saw it last night and absolutely loved it! Looks and sounds amazing. Great performances from the leads and quality veteran goodness from Terrance Stamp & Diana Rigg (RIP). Fried gold!
Looks good
Hyped for this–hopefully it’s not too much of a disappointment.
The first hour of this movie is so fuckin stupendous and then it just goes more and more downhill. Shame because it’s SO pretty and the cast are amazing.
The sequel shall be entitled One Night in Bangkok, it shall.
why Bangkok? One town’s very like another when your head’s down over your pieces, brother
when your head’s down over your pieces, brother
Look, I get my kicks above the waistline sunshine…
Whaddya mean?**in static-y old radio sound effect
I don’t see you guys rating the kind of mate I’m contemplating
I’d let you watch, I would invite you but the queens we use would not excite you
So will they be going with a CGI Yul Brynner then?
I am so glad I am not the only ones whos mind went to this
I’ve never seen the show, but Tim Rice lyrics are usually kickass.
This sub-thread is getting really off-track so you all better go back to your bars, your temples, your (audible air quotes) “massage parlors”.
But as in Wright’s last film, Baby Driver, the characters are shiny objects first and people second—a choice that assures that Last Night In Soho’s merits are almost entirely on a surface level. For Wright, dialing back the jokes shouldn’t have to mean dialing back the humanity as well.This is a pretty perfect description of Baby Driver, and a really interesting point, too. It’s kind of fascinating that the Cornetto Trilogy had such obvious affection for its deeply realized characters, only for Baby Driver (and, possibly, this movie) to fail so badly on that score.
I have one brother (of three) who’s not an alcoholic, and a couple years ago we got onto the topic of the World’s End, and we both were kind of raving about without acknowledging just how close to home Simon Pegg’s character felt. The depiction of a charismatic, depressed, nostalgic middle-aged drunk is spot-on. Also, the wordplay in the first half of the movies is peerless – I think the story loses steam as soon as the creatures show up, but even then the fight choreography is terrific.
Pegg is incredible in World’s End, but I always want to stick up for Frost there too — like Pegg, he’s stretching out but into normal competence instead of slobby comedy (which he is great at!) and he nails both the resigned rejection of Pegg’s good-time enthusiasm and how that gives him a base for heroism and reclaiming the good parts of his past later on.
Also, Frost’s dead-eyed stare as he pounds five shots midway through the movie kind of sells the idea that this bold, funny action-comedy moment is also a guy giving up his sobriety.
that part makes me want to get drunk and fight aliens so badly haha.
That part where he just loses it and screams “I HATE this fuckin’ town!!” before throwing down just kills me every time.
Most of us have probably known at least one person just like Pegg’s character in World’s End. It’s probably his best-ever performance.
I mean the obvious difference is Simon Pegg was part of the creative for the Cornetto Trilogy and wasn’t part of the creative for Baby Driver or this movie.Could just be that Wright isn’t that great of a writer and got a lot of credit for what was actually Pegg (in terms of the script).
It sure looks pretty. I am seeing it tonight and I am mostly just excited to see Go-Go style Anya Taylor Joy.
Is it just me, or does Edgar Wright always seem to cast women who look extremely young when he’s not working with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost?
Particularly that saucy kitten Diana Rigg!
Rigg and Tushingham. A star and a New Wave goddess. It will be nice to see them again.
That’s probably because he’s working in Hollywood. I assume at least for Shawn of the Dead, he was still working in a British studio.
I didn’t think Lily James looked especially young for her role, and the Scott Pilgrim women generally looked their characters’ ages.Maybe you’re thinking that because he did date Anna Kendrick, who will probably still look like she’s in high school when she hits fifty.
damn he casted a young woman for a young woman’s role #fireedgar
What do you mean by extremely young? He casts a lot of early to mid 20s year old actresses (as do most Hollywood movies) and they all look around that age. The only real exception is the actress he cast to play Knives in Scott Pilgrim but that was intentional as the character is supposed to be noticeably younger than the rest of the main cast.If you’re saying Thomasin and ATJ look like teenagers, I just disagree.
It’s just you.
Who you callin’ a ho, so?I adore Edgar Wright; I’d go see this if it got a F+. Maybe not on opening night, but I’d still see it.
Oh, this is an Edgar Wright movie? Bleh. Pass.
Fucking Baby Driver. No babies driving cars? What gives?
#ReleasetheBabyCut
OK.You can’t go wrong with Initial D.
Not even a scene of somebody driving a baby like in Spock’s Brain
Wright’s immensely talented but feels all over the place. I haven’t unabashedly liked a movie of his since Hot Fuzz, and I’m always really sad after that I haven’t like the movie, because there’s usually so much in it that’s redeeming. Baby Driver felt like an incredible music video without a soul.
I’m right with you
Like we know he has the chops, but there is an ongoing case of diminishing returns
My favorite thing about Wright is that he always makes a stop on Comedy Bang Bang when he’s doing the press tours.
Hey guess whathttps://www.earwolf.com/episode/beethovens-5th-fck-the-fourth/
I know this is annoying and petty, and I love Dario, but the lighting style is Bava’s. Dario openly admits that it’s a lift, and while he’s responsible for the most recognisable multi-hued lighting, he really only uses it wall-to-wall in two movies, and it’s really not that common or that extreme in other gialli. If anything Dario was doing it as a callback to earlier films, it wasn’t really carried on throughout the Giallo cycle as a matter of course.This is me being a dumb pedant, and I know nobody cares, it’s the same as when people limit film noir to just Sam Spade, and gumshoes, and light filtering through horizontal blinds onto people’s faces. A little part of me mourns that the reality has been buried under the myth.
As a giallo fan and fan of movie knowledge (especially when it pertains to genres I love and know about), I appreciate the pedantry.
“And
for all the attention Wright pays to costumes and sets, he can be
oblivious about the implications of his imagery. Certainly, neither he
nor Wilson-Cairns seem to have considered them in regards to a harrowing
aborted sex scene where Eloise conflates the predatory ghosts of the
past with the man she’s brought home in the present, classmate and love
interest John (Michael Ajao). The sequence is masterfully edited and
staged to maximize audience discomfort, which only enhances the careless
optics of putting a Black actor in this scenario—especially given how Last Night In Soho generally uses Ajao’s character and then puts him aside until he’s needed again.”I haven’t seen the film but this seems a strange analysis. I’m not sure why the female-male dynamic would be diluted because of ethnicity – does Katie Rife view sexual interactions between black and white men as inherently different, or at least different enough to erase gender distinctions? If not, I’m not sure why it’s meant to be important. Should POC characters have been removed, or a 2021-friendly side plot been shoehorned in?
Yeah, I’ve seen the film, and it still seems strange. Seems like an odd time in general for film, where there’s an emphasis on color-blind casting, yet criticism is more focused on race than ever. As for this, I guess don’t read the rest of this paragraph if you aren’t interested in a semi-spoiler for an aspect of the context of the scene, but I thought that the racial element with his realization that he was not wearing pants in the bedroom of a hysterically terrified, crying, semi-undressed white teenage girl screaming “get off, get off” while the landlady pounded on the door is a huge part of the discomfort, and those optics are why he decides “f—- this” and that he needs to forget about helping her and just get the heck out of there immediately when the landlady says she’s going to call the police.
this guy and rian johnson make movies whose vibe I would describe as “annoying”
Baby Driver was abysmal, intelligence-insulting stuff, and everything I’ve read about this tells me Wright hasn’t corrected course. Hard pass.
Sounds about right. Outside of the Cornetto Trilogy he’s really only made two movies. I think that headline could have been written for both of them.
outside of the three movies hes made that dont count he has only uh made uh 2 and half movies and uh those dont count because uh they dont.
What I was trying to say is that (in my opinion) there is a major difference in quality between the Cornetto Trilogy and the other movies Wright has directed. From the sound of it, his newest is more in line with the latter. Maybe Simon Pegg helps him find some kind of balance. I dunno.
Look the one question you need to ask yourself is “Would you like to see a live action adaptation of Perfect Blue which takes place in England?” If the answer’s yes then you’d dig this
Ripping off Satoshi Kon? That’s Darren Aronofsky’s job, dammit!But seriously, your description has done more to make me excited for this than any reviews have.
“especially given how Last Night In Soho generally uses Ajao’s character and then puts him aside until he’s needed again”Is that not how side characters work?
Certainly, neither he nor Wilson-Cairns seem to have considered them in
regards to a harrowing aborted sex scene where Eloise conflates the
predatory ghosts of the past with the man she’s brought home in the
present.Sadly I lack the professionally critical capacity to see into the souls of filmmakers, but I read that scene as saying that even consensual encounters can be triggering for people who have been traumatized by sexual assault.
Yeah as a woman his character was the opposite of threatening and it was more pointing out how the trauma from the creepy men/fear of assault can threaten even a consensual encounter with an ideal partner. He was very respectful with her and checked in multiple times, he was legitimately supportive of her talents- he was like the opposite of Jack. I feel because of his race I was more worried about his character and what could happen if her desire to sneak him in went wrong
Rita Tushingham’s best turn as an actress is in this Smiths video:
Avaiability?
I’m on the bus home after seeing it, and it’s very in my head still. Halloween was a bad choice.The bad: distractingly – though perhaps deliberately – ill-defined characters, both minor and major (mean girl, dismissive copper, etc), particularly John, who’s just there to look concerned when the plot needs it, and be the one non-threatening man in town.The good: thoroughly excellent location work; it’s super, super creepy in the “repulsion” mould; there’s a decent dollop of Wright’s signature first-half/second-half repeated motifs; the clothes, as befits a movie about fashion and Carnaby Street, are spectacular (and I’m not someone who usually cares about clothes); Matt Smith is a fabulous shit; so many black-cab-related jump scares!
I guess I do understand why so many of the reviews of this complain about the ending, since it does feel like a bit of a twist for the sake of having a twist. But (SPOILERS) are you really going to cast Diana Rigg and not have her murder a bunch of people with a knife and then dramatically die in a burning building?It was also a fairly interesting role for Dame Diana, given how she embodies the successful side of the “60s sexpot” icon that Sandie seemed to aspire to be. (Well, honestly, Cilla Black was a lot more wholesome than Diana Rigg back then, but still same ballpark.) Having her sit in the flames of the wreckage of the dreams of that era, but also seeing how those dreams were crafted on oppressive male desire, may not have been subtle, but I thought it was effective.For me, the movie would have been worth it just for all those gorgeous shots of Taylor-Joy descending the staircase, and all the fabulous mirror work. It did sag in the last third (there were about three too many scenes of Eloise being surrounded by the faceless men) but the ending worked for me, and I stayed rapt and tense the whole time.
The end chunk is just more homages, I’m wasn’t that fusssed about it narratively cos that’s Edgar Wright’s thing for better or worse. I think it’s pretty much directly referencing two famous films of the genre, both Argento (i’ll include them at the end of the p cos I don’t want to spoil anyone)
It also fits the general giallo feel along with specifically Edgar Wrights modern giallo focussing more explicitly on abuse of women (and all the meta elements of that too, I really liked your point there)
I think stylistically the end chunk just didn’t work so well. The stair way bit sorta worked but the final song just didn’t seem to blend in and felt all a bit weird a music videoey. Didn’t help that the middle chunk lost a bit of steam due to maybe one too many scenes of faceless old men who live in your bed and so the switch to climax felt very much a switch rather than the film naturally flowing into it
…..SPOILERS….
It felt to me the ending was directly referencing Bird with the Crytal Pluamge in the vision of the murder leading to the protagonists getting the murder/victim the wrong way round and then the mental old lady being the killer and trying to kill our hero was all very Profondo Rosso
So, I only just saw this and I thought it was a solid B+. The ending may be a bit silly but, well, it’s a ghost story. The fact that the whole thing relies on the main character being such a bumpkin that she never asks anyone their names, or signs a tenancy agreement, seems way more ridiculous than anything else (and I didn’t really mind that).Much better than Baby Driver. I put this in 3rd place after Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. Or 4th, if you include Spaced :)Potentially the “optics of putting a Black actor in this scenario” would be stronger in the US? I don’t know if Edgar would have thought about it in London in the 2020s. I may be hopelessly naive though.
I’m afraid I thought this was terrible.
SPOILERS
Reviewer mentions that there is nothing to Sandie, and that it a fundamental problem with the whole movie…there isn’t much to anybody. And eventually when Eloise is reduced to running around screaming at everything tiresomely for no apparent reason, there is nothing left to pay attention to. But the number one reason this movie sucks is just a huge mistake: there is no reason why her vision would show the wrong person being murdered. Incidentally, also no reason why later the murdered men would prevent her from calling the police long enough for it to matter and then start saying “help.” The whole thing is a torrent of garbage. Bill in Oliver! The Musical has more characterization than Matt Smith gets for his boring pimp. If you write strictly for style you are going to wind up with movies like this that aren’t worth the bytes they’re printed on. He needs to get some writers, fast.
Late to the party, but I think the Baby Driver comparisons are apt. Beautiful and well acted, but emptier than it should have been, largely due to the characters.However, miles better and less predictable than Midnight Alley, which got a damn best picture nomination
I’m surprised, in the light of Wright’s horrible fumble on schizophrenia vs accuser syndrome the reviewer chose to highlight the relatively tame casting of a black actor whose character was merely caught up in the main character’s paranoid visions. This movie _sucks_ and manages to not only be uninteresting, but being bad at being uninteresting. It’s messages don’t redeem it at all and it’s gliding on very thin ice on the lake Problematic. I love EW movies so this one was a huge huge disappointment.