The ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ star goes back in time and brings style and scares.
Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Last Night in Soho
The Big Picture
- Anya Taylor-Joy delivers a standout performance in Edgar Wright’s
Last Night in Soho
, showcasing a range from dreamy ingénue to cold-blooded murderer. -
Last Night in Soho
features horror vignettes, unnerving pacing, stunning visuals, and standout performances, despite a contrived and rushed ending. - The film’s strong points include a captivating soundtrack, horror scenes, and Anya Taylor-Joy’s stunning performance.
Anya Taylor-Joy continues to be quite busy, currently starring alongside Chris Hemsworth in George Miller‘s action-packed prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. While you likely know the actress from her Emmy-nominated performance as chess prodigy Beth Harmon in Netflix’s hit series The Queen’s Gambit, she’s also shown her vast range in projects like the chilling satire The Menu, the crime drama series Peaky Blinders, and even The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the voice of Princess Peach.
However, horror fans will likely remember Taylor-Joy from her film debut in Robert Eggers‘ disturbing 2015 film, The Witch. As the daughter of a puritan family whose life is slowly upturned by a demonic presence, Taylor-Joy delivers a performance completely beyond reproach. Before The Witch, however, there was another horror movie that is often overlooked when we talk about Taylor-Joy’s acting skills, featuring a tour-de-force performance that could pretty much serve as her whole demo reel: Edgar Wright‘s Last Night in Soho.
Last Night in Soho
- Release Date
- October 21, 2021
- Director
- Edgar Wright
- Cast
- Anya Taylor-Joy , Thomasin McKenzie , Diana Rigg , Matt Smith , Terence Stamp , Jessie Mei Li
- Runtime
- 118
- Main Genre
- Thriller
- Writers
- Edgar Wright , Krysty Wilson-Cairns
- Tagline
- When the past lets you in, the truth will come out.
What Is Edgar Wright’s ‘Last Night in Soho’ About?
Starring Thomasin McKenzie, Last Night in Soho follows a 21st century young woman with supernatural gifts and a connection to the 1960s. Recently admitted to the London College of Fashion, McKenzie’s Ellie leaves her grandmother in Cornwall for the big city that she’s always dreamed of. However, things aren’t exactly as pleasant as she’d anticipated. Between the leering men and her bully of a roommate, she soon finds herself suffocated. Trying to regain at least a little bit of control over her life, she leaves her student housing behind and takes up room in a house belonging to a woman named Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg).
That’s where Ellie’s dreams (and later her nightmares), begin. Through a mysterious preternatural bond with a previous inhabitant of her room, Ellie is able to access the life of another young woman named Sandie. An aspiring singer, Sandie (Taylor-Joy) moves to London in the ’60s only to find her dreams completely shattered by a deceitful pimp named Jack (Matt Smith). Initially, though, it all looks glamorous and promising enough. Sandie wears pretty dresses, dances with pretty men and hangs around pretty bars. Jack behaves gentlemanly, and everyone is in complete awe of Sandie’s singing and dancing skills. Seeing herself through this other woman’s eyes, Ellie can’t help but fall in love. Already feeling out of place in her new home, she allows herself to be transported to another time every night when she falls asleep.
‘Last Night in Soho’ Ending Explained: Does Eloise Escape the Past?
Edgar Wright’s nostalgia-infused horror movie starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Thomasin McKenzie, and Matt Smith is a stylish mystery.
Soon enough, though, this thin veneer disappears, and reality kicks in. As she witnesses Sandie being forced into prostitution and her dreams of becoming a singer are thrown to the side, Ellie finds herself suffocating once again. She doesn’t know what to do to help this woman that she never truly met. Except… she has. In a plot twist, it is revealed that Sandie is actually Ms. Collins, and that, for years, she had murdered the faceless men that abused her and buried them in her house’s walls and floor. As she turns against Ellie, who has just uncovered her secret, Ms. Collins ends up trapped in a fire. Though there is a brief moment of understanding between the two women, the narrative still punishes her with a horrifying death.
Edgar Wright’s ‘Last Night in Soho’ Fumbles Its Message
With such a conclusion, it’s not hard to understand why many people feel that Last Night in Soho‘s message gets more than just a little fumbled. Sure, London in the ’60s must’ve felt like the center of the universe, but it was also a place marked by sexism, trauma, and broken dreams. However, in trying to create a feminist horror tale about two women whose lives are interwoven by nostalgia and abuse, the end result is a bit murky. Ms. Collins’ big reveal is abrupt and Ellie’s moment of empathy with her is too short for us to embrace Ms. Collins as righteous. At the same time, we have witnessed enough of her trauma to not see her as completely evil. The first two-thirds of the movie are strong, but the ending feels contrived.
But these flaws, no matter how big they are, shouldn’t detract from the film’s many good qualities. The horror scenes work well, the plot’s pacing is unnerving, and the movie is overall gorgeous to look at. And then there’s the soundtrack, often a feat in movies directed by Edgar Wright. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there are the performances. From lead actress Thomasin McKenzie to Synnove Karlsen, who plays Ellie’s annoying and mean roommate Jocasta, everyone in Last Night in Soho is at the top of their game. With a mousy voice and a demure posture, McKenzie sells naïveté and nervousness like few others, and Matt Smith is more than simply despicable as Jack. Even Michael Ajao, who plays Ellie’s crush and only friend John, is utterly adorable and hard not to love.
Anya Taylor-Joy Elevates Edgar Wright’s ‘Last Night in Soho’
Out of all of Last Night in Soho‘s performances, Anya Taylor-Joy’s is the one that definitely demands the most attention. Throughout the movie’s nearly two hours of screentime, her Sandie goes from a dreamy ingénue who fashions herself a femme fatale to a cynical, traumatized woman to a cold-blooded murderer. In Ellie’s visions of the past, we see her strut confidently through bars, rage against her awful fate, fight back, and then give up. We see her joy and her pain. Heck, we even see her die as, one drunken night, Ellie is shown visions of her being stabbed by Jack. Taylor-Joy is superb in all of these moments. Oh, and let’s not forget about her gorgeous singing!
Granted, when it comes to selling Sandie as a fully-fledged character, we mustn’t give all the credit to Taylor-Joy. The late Diana Rigg also deserves a lot of applause for her older version of the character. As much as turning Sandie’s character into a crazed woman is a choice, Rigg is essential to making her a convincing villain. But, for most of the film, it is indeed Taylor-Joy that helps us build Sandie from scratch, infusing her with charm and despair, and making us — and Ellie — fawn over her, fear for her, and later fear her.
Last Night in Soho is available to watch on Prime Video in the U.S.
Watch on Prime Video
This article was originally published on collider.com