Movie Review: 'Last Night in Soho' is One of the Best of 2021

Last Night in Soho stars Thomasin McKenzie as Eloise, a bright and cheerful young woman who has just been accepted into university to study fashion design. With her love of all things 60s, Eloise has many bright ideas about bringing 60s fashion forward to today. Trouble is brewing behind her eyes however as we learn of what happened to Eloise’s mother, whom Eloise occasionally still sees in the mirror. I won’t say what happened to mom, you should see for yourself.

Moving to London to attend University, Eloise meets her roommate, an obnoxious prat named Jocasta (Synnove Karlson), and immediately begins looking for other accommodations. What Eloise finds is downright perfect for her, an upstairs efficiency apartment that looks as if it hadn’t been updated since the 1960s. The apartment is quiet and close to school and it exists in a neighborhood that appears to not have changed much since Eloise’s favorite decade.

Then it happens, Eloise falls asleep for the first time in her new apartment and finds herself swept into a time traveling dream. In the dream, Eloise sees herself but also the visage of Sandy (Anya Taylor Joy), a swingin' 60s chick. With Sandy, Eloise finds herself in the nightlife of London in the swinging sixties. She dances, she’s romanced by a handsome man claiming to be a talent agent, Jack (Matt Smith), and sees 60s icon Cilla Black perform live.

It’s pure magic but it doesn’t last. Each night Eloise enters her dream and re-enters the mind of Sandy as Sandy works to become a singer. Jack gets Sandy an audition at a famed nightclub, The Rialto but she soon finds herself dancing in a skimpy outfit in the chorus as drunks paw at her. This is shortly followed by Jack trying to get her to sleep with men for money and the promise that their good favor will get her on stage. The more agony visited upon Sandy, the more it weighs on Eloise’s already fragile psyche.

As story of Last Night in Soho progresses, the movie becomes a murder mystery. On a drunken night with a new male friend, John (Michael Ajao), Eloise’s reality and dream world begin to melt into each other and Eloise believes that she is witnessing Sandy’s murder at the hands of Jack. From there she goes to the police, who think she’s crazy and begins her own investigation that centers on a mysterious elderly man, Terrence Stamp, who bears an ever so slight resemblance to Jack.

What Edgar Wright has done in Last Night in Soho is craft an all new take on a murder mystery genre and I loved it. I adore the murder mystery genre and Last Night in Soho gives the genre a fresh coat of style. The candy colored nightlife of swinging 60s London is intoxicating and then, as more and more is revealed, it curdles into a dark horror story about the mental health toll taken on both Eloise and Sandy as Eloise witnesses the cautionary tale of Sandy’s broken dreams first hand.

Wright has a first rate cast on hand to play out this brilliant story with the starry eyed Thomasin McKenzie, the seductive and sad Anya Taylor Joy, the menacing Matt Smith and the sneakily fascinating former 60s TV star Diana Rigg, in a tasty supporting role. All of the elements at play in Last Night at Soho hum with superb energy and excitement and then beautifully begin to decay as the murder mystery plays out. All of this while Wright is exploring the psychological toll this is taking on his lead characters.

It’s a breathtaking roller-coaster ride of romance and excitement taking a terrifying turn into the darkest corners of both London’s nightlife and the recesses of a troubled mind. The direction of Last Night in Soho is dynamic and dizzying, keeping a terrific pace without ever losing track of these brilliant and lively characters. So much praise must go to Thomasin McKenzie who has to anchor this story in a believable reality while also being engaging, sympathetic and dynamic in her own performance and she pulls it off brilliantly.

Last Night in Soho opened in theaters nationwide on Friday, October 29th.