film review last night in soho

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, last night in soho.

Now streaming on:

Eloise “Ellie” Turner ( Thomasin McKenzie ), the wide-eyed protagonist at the heart of director Edgar Wright ’s stylish yet thematically inert horror/comedy "Last Night in Soho," has big dreams of becoming a fashion designer. But a ghost haunts her: Ellie’s mother had similar desires of working as a designer. Her mother moved to London only to die by suicide. Now Ellie sees her visage in every mirror.

Likewise to her mother, Ellie, who worships the styles and music of the 1960s, decides to relocate to London for fashion school. But her doting grandmother (a touching Rita Tushingham ) fears for her: she can see and feel emotions others cannot, a kind of strong psychic link to her environment. After receiving a lukewarm reception from her college mates—they tease the creative Ellie for wearing the clothes that she made, and for her humble country origins in Cornwall—she decides to move out on her own. She rents a vintage flat from a strict but seemingly caring Ms. Collins ( Diana Rigg , in her final film role).

It’s a wonderful set-up for Ellie until she begins to dream of being Sandy ( Anya Taylor-Joy ), a swinging, young blond woman who lived in 1966 London. Soon the bounds between reality and fantasy blur, and Ellie’s dreams become nightmares. Co-written with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (“1917”), Wright’s “Last Night in Soho” is funny and chaotic, slick and stylish, and falls apart in its confounding second half.

The first section of “Last Night in Soho” sings by way of Wright’s penchant for sharp needle drops: songs like Petula Clark ’s “Downtown,” James Ray ’s “Got My Mind Set on You,” and Peter and Gordon’s “A World Without Love” toe tap Ellie’s adventures through London. The young woman is kind of a hayseed, dazzled by what she’s read about the big city, and searching for the London she’s heard in her favorite songs. How McKenzie plays Ellie is not unlike her turn as Tom in “ Leave No Trace .” She’s a stranger caught in a strange land, trying to mend her disconnection from a parent. She uses her nostalgia for the '60s as a safety net, eventually buying clothes from the era and changing her hair blonde.

The initial premise for “Last Night in Soho” also hits. As the country girl now living in the big city, she must avoid lascivious elements. During a skin-crawling cab ride, for instance, the driver begins to comment on her legs, and wants to know if other models live with her. Wright wants to make this film not just as warning against blind nostalgia, but a critique of grubby, toxic men.

This central hook hints at the latter theme, that when Ellie sleeps she not only sees Sandy, Ellie becomes Sandy. Resourceful in-camera effects and staging allow the elegant Sandy to enter a hip, fabulous 1960s club, descending down a flight of stairs, past a wall made of mirrors. On one side of the mirrors is Sandy. On the other, Ellie. The two characters, however, are polar opposites. Unlike the shy Ellie, Sandy struts with the confidence of a runway model. She knows what she wants. And she thinks she knows how to get it.

Where Wright’s film begins to falter is with its villain. See, Sandy comes under the watchful eye of Jack ( Matt Smith ), a pompadoured, pinstripe-wearing agent who represents all the girls. Unbeknownst to Sandy, Jack is a pimp. And he uses her hunger for fame against her by promising the ways that propositioning herself will help her career. While Ellie comes to fear him, the audience doesn’t. It’s inaccurate to say the concept of Jack wouldn’t make a hateable villain. But Wright doesn’t build-out that character enough for him to be more than a boogeyman.

Wright made his mark with the zombie comedy “ Shaun of the Dead ,” so it’s not surprising that he’d return to the tactic here. Amid colorful, surreal kaleidoscopic reflections, a gaggle of morbid apparitions appear to attack Ellie. These ghosts elicit few frights due to their indistinguishability, and how often Wright deploys them. The ever-shrinking boundaries between Ellie and Sandy might be intriguing if the two were more connected beyond having the same address in different decades.

“Last Night in Soho” also suffers from a common mistake that arises from colorblind casting. To elicit a scare in one scene, unintentionally the scariest in the film, the film’s lone Black character ( Michael Ajao ) is dressed for Halloween only to have his night end in a near-rape accusation by a white woman. It’s difficult to further discuss the scene without major spoilers, but filmmakers need to understand that merely casting a Black actor isn’t enough, especially with the racial history of a scene like this one. Afterwards, that Black character still tries to help the white person who nearly got him killed, a decision that’s more far-fetched than any ghoul.

Beyond the initial themes, such as zealotry to the past and toxic men—there’s just not enough to carry the film. Wright doesn’t have anything to say about the sex industry, the casting couch or mental health beyond a surface-level understanding. Instead, he relies on cornball humor, copious blood and gore, and homages to far better films. Normally that’d be enough, and it has been in the past, but the tonality doesn’t quite square with the film’s heavy subjects this time. In fact, the twist ending won’t surprise many.

Ultimately, Ellie’s story feels incomplete, buried by the fashion of the film until the style can no longer carry it. Wright's “Last Night in Soho” features a killer soundtrack and chic retro fashion by costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux , yet crumbles into a disappointing mound of boredom.

This review was filed on September 11, 2021 from the North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film opens on October 29, 2021.

Robert Daniels

Robert Daniels is an Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com. Based in Chicago, he is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) and Critics Choice Association (CCA) and regularly contributes to the New York Times , IndieWire , and Screen Daily . He has covered film festivals ranging from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto. He has also written for the Criterion Collection, the Los Angeles Times , and Rolling Stone about Black American pop culture and issues of representation.

Now playing

Nandini Balial

Peyton Robinson

Simon Abrams

About Dry Grasses

Carlos aguilar.

We Were the Lucky Ones

Film credits.

Last Night in Soho (2021)

118 minutes

Thomasin McKenzie as Eloise

Anya Taylor-Joy as Sandy

Matt Smith as Jack

Terence Stamp

Diana Rigg as Miss Collins

Edgar Wright

Writer (story by)

Krysty Wilson-Cairns

Cinematographer

Chung-hoon Chung
Paul Machliss
Steven Price

Latest blog posts

Steve Martin Is an Auteur Without Having Directed a Thing

The Unloved, Part 124: Play Dirty

Beyoncé and My Daughter Love Country Music

A Poet of an Actor: Louis Gossett, Jr. (1936-2024)

Cast & crew
User reviews

Last Night in Soho

Aspiring fashion designer Eloise is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s, where she encounters dazzling wannabe singer Sandie. But the glamour is not as it seems, and the dreams of the past ... Read all Aspiring fashion designer Eloise is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s, where she encounters dazzling wannabe singer Sandie. But the glamour is not as it seems, and the dreams of the past crack and splinter into something darker. Aspiring fashion designer Eloise is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s, where she encounters dazzling wannabe singer Sandie. But the glamour is not as it seems, and the dreams of the past crack and splinter into something darker.

Edgar Wright
Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Thomasin McKenzie
Anya Taylor-Joy
1.1K User reviews
473 Critic reviews
65 Metascore
24 wins & 76 nominations total

Ms. Collins
Eloise's Mother
(as Amieé Cassettari)

Taxi Driver #1

(as Synnøve Karlsen)

Toucan Bartender

Drunk Student

Student at Party

Silver-Haired Gentleman

College Administrator
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

Trivia Final performance of Diana Rigg , who passed away on September 10, 2020. The film is dedicated to her memory. Her only child, actress Rachael Stirling , receives a "Special Thanks" in the end credits.
Goofs Eloise asks the librarian for information on missing persons for the entire 1960's, but she had an obvious reference to narrow her search - Thunderball (1965) was released in the UK on December 29, 1965 meaning this was early 1966 at the earliest.

Eloise : Has a woman ever died in my room?

Ms Collins : This is London. Someone has died in every room in every building and on every street corner in the city.

Crazy credits Before the film begins, it opens with a simple dedication: "For Diana". This is likely a dedication for the film's star, Diana Rigg, who died after shooting finished, but before the release of the film.
Connections Edited into Last Night in Soho: Deleted Scenes (2022)
Soundtracks A World Without Love Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney Performed by Peter and Gordon Courtesy of Warner Music UK Ltd

User reviews 1.1K

MissSimonetta
Mar 13, 2023
How long is Last Night in Soho? Powered by Alexa
October 29, 2021 (United States)
United Kingdom
Film Sözlük
Korku Filmleri
Đêm Trước Ở Soho
Soho, Westminster, Greater London, England, UK
Focus Features International (FFI)
Perfect World Pictures
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$43,000,000 (estimated)
$10,127,625
Oct 31, 2021
$22,957,625

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 56 minutes
Dolby Atmos

More to explore

Last Night in Soho review: Edgar Wright's retro thriller dazzles with '60s style, falls short on plot

Two girls, one time-jump.

Leah Greenblatt is the critic at large at Entertainment Weekly , covering movies, music, books, and theater. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and has been writing for EW since 2004.

Movie trailers tend to fall back on a certain bag of tricks, a particular favorite of the last decade being the Haunted Pop Song. You know the one: Where a canonical hit of yesteryear is slowed down and drawn out — preferably with the help of some unholy children's choir — until it oozes and melts, less a remake than a kind of musical tar pit. (Blame The Social Network , to start .)

Last Night in Soho (in theaters Friday) does that with Petula Clark's "Downtown," turning her winsome 1965 single into a dreamy, spectral a cappella dirge. Except this one actually earns it : That's star Anya Taylor-Joy singing for her life from (yes) 1965, the year in which approximately half its story takes place. And Soho is one hell of a half of a movie: a wildly styled neon reverie whose spooky bedazzlement only crashes to earth when it succumbs to bog-standard horror in the final act.

Thomasin McKenzie 's Eloise, or Ellie as she's mostly called, is the kind of girl for whom the past isn't past; it's more vivid than the present. An aspiring clothes designer raised in rural Cornwall by her kindly grandmother (Rita Tushingham), she's plastered her bedroom with posters of Twiggy and Breakfast at Tiffany's and twirls blissfully to the crackling sound of her mother's old LPs. But fashion school means moving up to the big city, and freshman year quickly turns into a gauntlet of poisonous mean girls and dorm-room party monsters — not the least of whom is her reluctant roommate, a smirking vamp named Jacosta (Synnove Karlsen).

Jacosta's obvious disdain for this little country mouse in her home-sewn Etsy smocks sends Ellie searching for an off-campus room of her own, which she finds — seemingly untouched for the last six decades, give or take — in the home of the spinsterish Miss Collins (the late, great Diana Rigg ) who only asks that she pay up front and not have male guests after 8 p.m. There's a turntable, a landline ("Do you know what a landline is?"), and a buzzing Bistro sign that blinks red and blue through the window all night long; to Ellie, it's perfect.

It is also, it turns out, some kind of wonderland-wormhole to a swinging London of more than half a century ago. Every night under the blinking lights, sleep transports her into the long-ago body of Taylor-Joy's Sandie, a cupid-lipped beauty in a bubblegum babydoll who seems to be everything Ellie isn't: brash, blond, completely sure of her place in the world. She's got the voice to be a singer like Cilla Black , and a suave nightclub manager named Jack ( Matt Smith ) seems like the kind of man who makes things like that happen. He also quickly becomes her lover, and Ellie is there for all of it: She's in Sandie and outside of her too, a sort of metaphysical plus-one whose presence only materializes through a looking glass (and some clever camera work).

Soon Sandie's nocturnal realm of champagne cocktails and gentleman's clubs becomes more real to Ellie than her days at school — despite the increasingly worried queries of her grandmother and the gentle flirtations of an amiable boy in her class ( Attack the Block 's Michael Ajao) — and her evenings spent pulling pints at a grubby pub. And the visits themselves start to take on a darker, more sinister tone: a foreshadowing of something that won't end well for Sandie, or someone.

This is all visual catnip for writer-director Edgar Wright ( Baby Driver , Hot Fuzz ), who revels in putting his two luminous young stars through their the-mirror-has-two-faces paces and sending them down into the glittery swirl of a Sixties that likely never really was, all velvet banquettes and white vinyl raincoats. In thrall to that he forgot, maybe, to fully flesh out the script: What feels at first like a knowing nod to classic movie tropes begins to turn more silly and literal in the second hour as Ellie spirals into frantic, fragile cliché, a girl too lost in her own dream logic to tether the story to the real stakes of waking life.

The New Zealand-born McKenzie ( JoJo Rabbit , Leave No Trace ) excels at a kind of delicate doe-eyed fervor; you believe her Ellie would be subsumed by someone as voraciously alive as Taylor-Joy's Sandie in a moment (even if perhaps she never really lived at all). Smith is breezily good as the slippery Jack, and Terence Stamp, still a lion at 83, turns up too briefly as an enigmatic link between the two eras. It's also a stealthy gift to watch Rigg, who passed away last September , in her final performance: An original Avenger and former Bond Girl , she might have actually come closest to embodying the mad, mod world Wright so lovingly recreates here on screen, if only he'd found a way to make it more than skin deep. Grade: B

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Love Lies Bleeding Link to Love Lies Bleeding
Problemista Link to Problemista
Late Night with the Devil Link to Late Night with the Devil

New TV Tonight

Mary & George: Season 1
Star Trek: Discovery: Season 5
Sugar: Season 1
American Horror Story: Season 12
Parish: Season 1
Ripley: Season 1
Loot: Season 2
Lopez vs Lopez: Season 2
The Magic Prank Show With Justin Willman: Season 1

Last Night in Soho Reviews

Regardless of some questionable narrative choices, the pure spectacle of Last Night in Soho may well have audiences wanting to go downtown in Swinging London.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2023

If Last Night In Soho is not Edgar Wright’s finest moment as a director, it is a fine advert for his obvious qualities as a filmmaker, with the slow build-up of action creating an undercurrent of tension and showing his appreciation for the horror genre.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2023

Last Night in Soho is part psychological thriller, part coming-of-age story, part terrifying horror film with timely social commentary, and part ode to a specific time and place that lives within many of us.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 8, 2023

The build-up toward these climax hints at catastrophe, both for the characters involved and the narrative itself.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jul 29, 2023

Wrapping oneself up in the warm blanket of nostalgia has always been an alluring proposition. Cult filmmaker Edgar Wright provides a corrective to those rose-colored cravings with Last Night in Soho, a creepy ghost story with a twist.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Last Night in Soho is a visually stunning letdown.

Anya Taylor-Joy stars in this horror mystery that's heavy on neon lights and eye-popping visuals, but low on satisfying climaxes and nuanced storytelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 21, 2023

The multifaceted, nuanced quality of music is vital to Last Night in Soho, in which people aren’t so easily defined.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2023

The end result is a film that doesn’t feel like it’s selling out to one particular style, but is effectively evoking all of them.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 22, 2022

Last Night In Soho is far from flawless, but it proves a fun and fascinating step forward in Wright’s oeuvre.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 12, 2022

The characters get lost in this meandering malaise.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 23, 2022

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO looks back at the 1960s through the dreams--often nightmares--of Ellie, a would-be fashion designer (played by Thomasin McKenzie), in the present-day. This is a surprising film with enough ideas for two films.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 18, 2022

Last Night in SoHo doesn’t feel bold enough to deliver on its more scathing commentary, delivering on cultivated cinematic moments that make it a diverting, if relatively empty vessel.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 21, 2022

Wright makes a good fist of this sort of psychogeographic ghost story, reaching deep into his bag of visual tricks to bring ‘60s Soho to life.

Full Review | Aug 18, 2022

This psychological horror thriller has elements that would be right at home on the pages of an early Stephen King novel or being introduced by Rod Serling on a Fall Friday evening on CBS.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2022

This is McKenzie and Taylor-Joy's show... The performances they provide to match share other echoes, too; one initially innocent and wide-eyed, the other confident and determined at first, they find common ground in their characters' vulnerabilities.

Full Review | Aug 13, 2022

It's been so long since a film hasn't, due to the fractured COVID-affected cinema industry, also had a simultaneous digital launch, that it feels wonderful and weird to be again heading to a hard-top cinema to see a film again.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2022

Edgar Wright is so good, just so skilled, everything swoops and cuts right when it should.

Full Review | Jul 14, 2022

The film is a blast to watch, full of tantalizing suggestions of a deeper drama that never quite materializes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 14, 2022

While I wasn't too fond of where it ended up, the film's stunning first act is enough for me to recommend it still. I can't call anything that had me grinning with delight for nearly an hour a total disappointment.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 11, 2022

Tickets & Showtimes
Trending on RT

Last Night In Soho First Reviews: Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy Dazzle in Edgar Wright’s “Hypnotic" Horror Hybrid

Critics at the venice film festival say this “genuinely scary” ode to 1960s london and hammer horror carries all the director’s trademarks – cue the awesome needle drops – and provides the late diana rigg with a fitting swan song..

TAGGED AS: festival , Film , Film Festival , films , Horror , movies , psychological thriller , thriller , venice

Last Night in Soho - Thomasin McKenzie door

(Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh / Focus Features)

Edgar Wright , best known for hybrid comedies such as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and the crime thriller Baby Driver , continues to play around with genres in Last Night in Soho , a nostalgic yet nightmarish tribute to 1960s London. The first reviews, from its Venice Film Festival debut, mostly celebrate its stylish time-traveling mashup of British cinema homage and unique spin on giallo horror – as well as its dual-lead performances from Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy and loving showcase for screen icons such as the late Diana Rigg.

Here’s what critics are saying about Last Night in Soho :

Is Last Night in Soho as entertaining as it looks?

“Wickedly entertaining… immensely pleasurable.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“Immensely entertaining.” – David Katz, The Film Stage

“A piece that offers such intoxicating entertainment.” – Neil Smith, Total Film

“Riotously entertaining…a blast. Last Night In Soho is the kind of good time which isn’t over until someone’s either crying or bleeding.” – Wendy Ide, Screen International

“Wright’s film is corny and slight, like a three-minute pop song, which means that it’s corny and slight in the most pleasurable sense.” – Xan Brooks, Guardian

“Hugely enjoyable, campy and stylish.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“Why the hell isn’t it more fun?” – Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

What kind of movie can we expect?

“It’s a riotous, rascally hybrid of a thing.” – Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph (UK)

“An intoxicatingly distinctive, delirious creation that soars out of every pigeonhole you put it in…[it] twists and turns between being a perky sitcom about the hassles of student life to a rollicking time-travel romance to a full-on horror movie. And I do mean full-on.” – Nicholas Barber, IndieWire

“[It] delights in playing with genre, morphing from time-travel fantasy to dark fairy tale, from mystery to nightmarish horror in a climax that owes as much to ’60s Brit fright fare as to more contemporary mind-benders.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“Another delightfully off-kilter thriller that also thrills with its undeniably trippy atmosphere…a more vibrant and exciting addition to the genre would be hard to find.” – Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“Wright’s particular affections for B-movies, British Invasion pop and a fast-fading pocket of urban London may be written all over the film, but they aren’t compellingly written into it, ultimately swamping the thin supernatural sleuth story at its heart.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

“Wright and co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns lean far too heavily on the hoary whodunit? clichés that are baked into the DNA of the giallo genre.” – David Jenkins, Little White Lies

Does it work as a horror movie?

“It’s an estimable, genuine horror movie that also manages to say something real — without trying to ‘elevate’ the genre.” – Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com

“[It’s] genuinely scary.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“Horror-heads are unlikely to find it particularly scary.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

Will Edgar Wright fans enjoy it?

“ Last Night In Soho is pure Wright all the way, and it works to a startlingly successful degree.” – Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“Wright directs with his familiar energy and introduces some comic elements.” – Geoffrey Macnab, Independent (UK)

“This is by far the director’s best film since his Shaun of the Dead debut.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“ Last Night in Soho manages to continuously raise the bar for this storyteller…it can be very funny with Wright’s trademark wit.” – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

“Has plenty of what you might call The Wright Stuff…[but] also marks a refreshing change for the director.” – Nicholas Barber, IndieWire

“He’s out of his comfort zone but not out of his range…it’s undeniably exciting and encouraging to see Wright taking a calculated risk away from his established brand.” – Marshall Shaffer, Slashfilm

“A more sober, if still stylish, filmmaking flex from Wright. Gone are the trademark crash zooms and whip pans, and the hairpin cuts…and goofy banter.” – Philip de Semlyen, Time Out

“As always, Wright is a tad too slick.” – David Katz, The Film Stage

“It’s a shame that the previously-thought-to-be inexhaustible energy resource of Edgar Wright’s omnivorous, giddy cinephilia should finally be showing signs running out.” – Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

Last Night in Soho - Anya Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith

Is it mostly for fans of London – particularly in the 1960s?

“One of the best London movies of the new decade…a faithful yet playful homage to a lost and legendary Swinging ’60s London that is hard to find these days.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“There’s enjoyment to be gleaned from the lovely location shooting, which takes in the length and breadth of Soho.” – David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“Familiarity with that time, its screen icons and its chart hits is not a requirement…young audiences will groove equally on the time-travel thriller as it spirals into bloody horror, even if they’ve never heard of The Knack… and How to Get It .” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“It is a mix that has you in its first half longing to go back to that period in time like protagonist Eloise, but then maybe rethink that decision.” – Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“Wright’s film feels itself part-gentrified, dressing up cheap genre thrills in a distanced, dignifying gauze of nostalgia, and all the less fun for it.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

Who else is the movie for?

“Cinephiles and music lovers alike will find moments to relish here.” – Geoffrey Macnab, Independent (UK)

“Wright has lovingly made Last Night in Soho for himself and, well, it’s not clear who else.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

Will we love the soundtrack?

“The splendid soundtrack mixing ’60s classics from the period with current musical motifs provided by frequent Wright composer Steven Price, make this the best sounding film of the year.” – Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“Brilliant needle-drops…excellent soundtrack choices.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“Music has always been an integral part of Wright’s storytelling, but while it was perhaps foregrounded in Baby Driver , it’s more successfully integrated into the fabric of the film here.” – Wendy Ide, Screen International

“The passion for music in Last Night in Soho is akin to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood .” – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

“At a certain point, even the period music cues prove uninspired, albeit a consistent pleasure to listen to.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

How does Last Night in Soho look?

“Hypnotic.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“Subtle special effects are pulled off with amazing precision.” – David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“Its pristine pop-art finish occasionally feels at odds with the grit of its milieu.” – Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph (UK)

Does the movie feature strong female characters?

“This is Wright’s most female-led film to date, and the stronger for it.” – Wendy Ide, Screen International

“These are in some ways noticeably male-conceived female characters, but we can’t help who we are. When we’re male. Actually that’s one of the themes of the movie, taken to definitively toxic extremes.” – Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com

“[Wright’s] lead character hasn’t much in the way of actual character and still less of a sense of humor, which is definitely disappointing given that it just so happens to coincide with this being the first time Wright has made a film in which the protagonist is female.” – Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

“There’s a feminist undertow to its study of young women manipulated and misled by toxic masculinity, but the female characters themselves are blandly imperiled cyphers.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

Last Night in Soho - Thomasin McKenzie jacket

How is Thomasin McKenzie’s performance?

“Enchanting.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“She is so delightful and versatile that there doesn’t appear to be anything that she can’t do.” – Nicholas Barber, IndieWire

“Thomasin McKenzie absolutely brings it all as the main lead…stretching a whole new set of acting muscles here.” – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

“McKenzie makes the most of this full blown starring role, well out of whack with what we have seen her do to date, and brings it home.” – Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“[Her] performance rivals and maybe exceeds Natalie Portman’s in Black Swan (similar notes of vulnerability and steel are required).” – David Katz, The Film Stage

“Never one to let an underwritten character thwart her best efforts, [her] sweetly open, porous, persistently worry-etched features couldn’t be more ideally suited to Eloise’s ingenuous, new-in-town outlook.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

“Somehow underused despite being in every scene” – Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

What about Anya Taylor-Joy?

“Magnificent…Taylor-Joy is perfect for her role. She oozes charisma and star quality.” – Geoffrey Macnab, Independent (UK)

“Earthy and ethereal.” – Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph (UK)

“Taylor-Joy steals her scenes — as she tends to — and she supercharges the movie with an ethereal out-of-time-ness that’s borderline ghostly.” – Philip de Semlyen, Time Out

“Anya Taylor-Joy gets to sizzle and smolder in the way that has made her one of the most exciting rising stars in the business.” – Marshall Shaffer, Slashfilm

“[She is] cleverly underused in screen time.” David Katz, The Film Stage

“Anya Taylor-Joy, a brilliant actress and notable clothes person, is dazzling.” – Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com

Is this also a proper posthumous showcase for Dame Diana Rigg?

“ Last Night in Soho makes for a genuinely fitting epitaph for Rigg, who died after the shoot wrapped. It’s a proper showcase for her talents.” – Philip de Semlyen, Time Out

“This is most definitely a plum swan song for the ’60s icon.” – David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“She is as commanding and mischievous here as she ever was…what a superb final role for her.” – Nicholas Barber, IndieWire

“[She] socks it home for what sadly is her final screen appearance. She’s terrific” – Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

Are there any other performances that stand out?

“Another name that must be mentioned is Michael Ajao…as he is tenderly brilliant alongside Wright’s cast.” – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

“The supporting cast amps up that heady air of ’60s-ness: Brit-cool icons like Rigg, Tushingham and Terence Stamp…help power the plot.” – Philip de Semlyen, Time Out

“Stamp’s role is pointless and weirdly truncated, a waste of an actor who, gorgeous at age 83, is one of our great silver lions.” – Stephanie Zacharek, Time Magazine

How well does Wright balance the movie’s dual narratives?

“ Last Night in Soho’ s mysterious connection between the past and present is acely executed.” – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

“The skill with which Wright navigates between tones and time periods is exceptional.” – Nicholas Barber, IndieWire

“Wright is masterful at shaking up rhythms and visual textures to keep the senses stimulated beyond basic narrative engagement.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“Unfortunately the contemporary scenes are nowhere near as vivid as those from half a century ago…this is an uneven film with an awkward, cumbersome narrative structure. ” – Geoffrey Macnab, Independent (UK)

“…the present-day and ’60s timelines overlap there a few too many swinging London clichés that might have you thinking of Austin Powers.” – David Katz, The Film Stage

What’s the best thing about Last Night in Soho ?

“It’s the young stars who emerge as the movie’s strongest suit.” – Neil Smith, Total Film

“The film opens with what might be the best scene of the year, it’s unforgettably excellent.” – Ben Rolph, Discussing Film

“If the first third of Last Night in Soho were a movie unto itself, it would be one of the most stylish and seductive pictures of the year.” – Stephanie Zacharek, Time Magazine

“It’s as a tribute to what makes cities so alluring and so dangerous that perhaps Wright’s film succeeds most.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“It really dazzles, inspires, and even empowers as a celebratory work about British culture while never forswearing the historical scrutiny the past deserves.” – David Katz, The Film Stage

Does the movie ultimately stick the landing?

“The film brought me to tears a couple of times near the end…maybe there’s something in the water out here in Venice, I don’t know. But I fell hard for Last Night in Soho .” – Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com

“At a certain point, the plot becomes disappointingly unwieldy; by the end, it has cracked into dozens of irreconcilable pieces.” – Stephanie Zacharek, Time Magazine

“As it turns into a murder mystery and then takes a swerve into horror territory influenced equally by Hammer hauntings and giallo slashings the lack of consideration given to the plot starts to grate.” – Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

“There’s a point where the story jumps the shark…[and] becomes increasingly tough to take the plot seriously, or build an emotional connection with its climactic revelations.” – David Jenkins, Little White Lies

Last Night In Soho is in theaters from Friday October 22, 2021.

On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News .

Related News

Weekend Box Office Results: Godzilla x Kong Scores Monster Debut

30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming

Liam Neeson Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

Godzilla x Kong First Reviews: Full of Mindless, Glorious Spectacle, Just as Expected

TV Premiere Dates 2024

The Most Anticipated TV and Streaming Shows of 2024: New and Returning Shows We Can’t Wait to See

Movie & TV News

Featured on rt.

April 1, 2024

25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming

Top Headlines

Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now –
Best Horror Movies of 2024 Ranked – New Scary Movies to Watch –
30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming –
52 Best Soccer Movies, Ranked by Tomatometer –
Liam Neeson Movies Ranked by Tomatometer –
Best TV Shows of 2024: Best New Series to Watch Now –

an image, when javascript is unavailable

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

Thomasin mckenzie and anya taylor-joy in edgar wright’s ‘last night in soho’: film review | venice 2021.

The co-stars play what could almost be polar-opposite versions of the same young woman across a six-decade divide in this dark psycho-thriller that shimmies between the glamour and the gutter.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

Share this article on Facebook
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Flipboard
Share this article on Email
Show additional share options
Share this article on Linkedin
Share this article on Pinit
Share this article on Reddit
Share this article on Tumblr
Share this article on Whatsapp
Share this article on Print
Share this article on Comment

Thomasin McKenzie stars as Eloise and Anya Taylor-Joy as Sandie

In an early scene of Edgar Wright ’s wickedly entertaining Last Night in Soho , British screen veteran Rita Tushingham, playing the protagonist’s doting grandmother, Peggy, reminisces about the excitement, the music and the fashions of London in the Swinging ’60s. If your film knowledge of the period goes back far enough, you might find yourself thinking not only of Tushingham’s signature role in a classic of kitchen-sink realism, A Taste of Honey , but of her strolling down Carnaby Street with Lynn Redgrave singing the title song of Smashing Time , a kitschy guilty pleasure from 1967.

Tushingham, along with Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg — the latter in a glorious swan song that marks her final film appearance before her death last fall — provide poignant links, affectionate gestures from Wright toward an era in British cinema he clearly adores. (The simple dedication, “For Diana,” is lovely.) Not to mention a bounty of choice needle drops. But familiarity with that time, its screen icons and its chart hits is not a requirement of this Focus Features release. Young audiences will groove equally on the time-travel thriller as it spirals into bloody horror, even if they’ve never heard of The Knack… and How to Get It .

Full credits

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition) Distributor: Focus Features Production companies: Working Title, Complete Fiction, Focus Features, Film4, in association with Perfect World Pictures Cast: Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Diana Rigg, Terence Stamp, Rita Tushingham, Synnøve Karlsen, Michael Ajao, Jessie Mei Li, Kassius Nelson, Rebecca Harrod, Pauline McLynn, Aimee CassettariDirector: Edgar Wright Screenwriters: Edgar Wright, Krysty Wilson-Cairns; story by Wright Producers: Nira Park, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Edgar Wright Executive producers: James Biddle, Rachael Prior, Daniel Battsek, Oliie Madden Director of photography: Chung-Hoon Chung Production designer: Marcus Rowland Costume designer: Odile Dicks-Mireaux Editor: Paul Machliss Music: Steven Prince Visual effects supervisor: Tom Proctor Casting: Nina Gold, Martin Ware

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Zoe saldaña says she expects marvel’s ‘guardians of the galaxy’ will return: “it’d be a huge loss”, netflix enters its dan lin era, benedict cumberbatch, olivia colman to star in ‘war of the roses’ remake for searchlight, ‘the lost boys’ co-screenwriter says warner bros. wanted “brutal” rewrites to peter pan-inspired script, shakira says she and her sons found ‘barbie’ “emasculating”, jack champion, bobby cannavale, sophia lillis join dave bautista in ‘trap house’ thriller.

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.

Last Night in Soho Is a Mostly Intoxicating Affair

Edgar Wright is one of our great musical directors, even though he hasn’t technically made a musical yet. Whether they’re fighting the undead, or laying waste to quiet Cotswold towns, or driving getaway cars for assorted goons, his heroes move to melodies and rhythms both real and imagined, their gestures and glances timed to the beats of the director’s carefully chosen soundtracks. This isn’t just a stylistic feature. In Shaun of the Dead , the protagonists tried to behead zombies with vinyl LPs. In Baby Driver , the wheelman hero always had to have a pair of earphones on while driving; his music was his superpower, and without it, he was helpless. In Wright’s worlds, pop can transform reality and make you a different person.

And so, in the opening scenes of Last Night in Soho , we see soon-to-be-fashion student Ellie Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) buoyantly dancing around her Cornwall home to the strains of Peter & Gordon’s 1964 hit “A World Without Love.” Her room is covered in posters, pictures, and other arcana from the 1960s — so much so, that were it not for a digital clock in the background and the fact that her dress (presumably her own design) appears to have been made from a color newspaper, we could easily mistake the actual setting for the ’60s. Watching Ellie as she bounces around and playfully reassures her worried grandmother (Rita Tushingham, herself a ’60s icon) that her upcoming move to London will be perfectly safe, we might imagine this young woman as someone joyful, bold, infinitely confident. But once she arrives in the big city, we see that she’s actually unbearably reserved — an anxious, mousy dreamer who struggles to connect with her (admittedly shallow) cohort. Looking to get away from her party-girl roommates, Ellie rents a room in Soho that looks like it came straight out of a dollhouse version of The Conformist , the lights from the French restaurant across the street bathing her in reds and blues. Her new landlady, Ms. Collins (played by the late, great Diana Rigg, another icon from that earlier era), tells her she’d never sell this place, because it’s got “too many memories.”

Maybe literally. As she lies down to bed every night, Ellie dreams that she’s a gorgeous blonde named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy) making her way through the freewheeling, colorful, fast-paced London of 1965. Are these dreams, or are they something more? Ellie returns every night to Sandie’s world and sees her alter ego’s burgeoning relationship with a young, demonically handsome nightlife impresario named Jack (Matt Smith), who promises Sandie he can help her get a gig performing at one of the city’s hot spots. The statuesque Sandie seems to be everything Ellie is not — a brash eye-turner, a great dancer and singer — and so, back in the present, Ellie dyes her hair blonde and starts to mimic Sandie’s way of dressing and walking, finding her own swagger as a result.

But Soho is also Edgar Wright’s version of a horror movie, so Sandie’s world quickly starts to turn into something of a nightmare, and we are reminded that Swinging London came with its share of menace, betrayal, and violence. What seemed like a nightly trip into fantasyland starts to feel like a prison of the mind for the mentally fragile Ellie, as Sandie’s reality begins bleeding into her own. Which prompts all sorts of horror-movie questions: Is Sandie somehow sending messages to Ellie from the beyond? What happened to Sandie, anyway? And what can Ellie do about it?

A pop-culture savant himself, Wright understands Ellie’s aspirational neurosis — the illusory liberation that comes through projecting oneself into movies and songs and stories and images. But such obsessions can become its own sort of gilded psychological cage. The director has a grand old time orchestrating Ellie and Sandie’s conjoined realities, the camera swooping and spinning through a colorful, fast-paced, evocatively lit universe where the music never stops and the drinks never cease. In Sandie’s world, we usually see Ellie as a reflection in the mirror — a visual conceit that works so well because mirrored ceilings and walls and stairwells were all the rage back then. During one dance scene, Sandie takes the floor with Jack, but as they spin and swerve, it becomes a three-way roundelay; not only does Sandie keep changing into Ellie, but at times it feels like all three are dancing simultaneously. There’s an ecstatic quality to such scenes, but there’s also a moral undercurrent to the relentless choreography: Even as we sense that Ellie is completely at the mercy of Sandie, being sucked into this lovely young woman’s vortex, we notice, gradually, that Sandie herself isn’t instigating any of the action around her; she’s merely riding it. Neither girl, in other words, has any agency in this universe. As much as Ellie wants to be a Sandie, we may start to wonder if Sandie herself was once an Ellie.

Soho eventually goes to some dark places, with Wright utilizing shock tactics and jump scares with the same kid-in-a-candy-store voraciousness he brings to the film’s pop montages. That can have a somewhat numbing effect. Wright as a director seems less conversant with the dark corners of the psyche that (good) horror generally plumbs. He’s a playful poptimist at heart, and the film’s sordid, blood-soaked third act, while never boring, has a dutiful, bludgeoning quality. His red herrings don’t always work, either: One particular narrative surprise involving a certain male character feels telegraphed fairly early on, perhaps because Wright, at least on a visual and narrative level, doesn’t really do subtlety. But really, who wants subtlety? Such stylistic indulgence is very much in keeping with the film’s general over the topness. Whatever its occasional stumbles, Last Night in Soho is a mostly intoxicating affair.

More Movie Reviews

A Sad-Eyed Josh O’Connor Goes Tomb-Raiding in the Lovely, Mysterious La Chimera
Lisa Frankenstein Is Strictly a Mall-Goth Affair
Wicked Little Letters Should’ve Been for the Sickos
movie review
last night in soho
edgar wright
anya taylor-joy
thomasin mckenzie
rita tushingham
terence stamp
new york magazine

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

Lower case letters (a-z)
Upper case letters (A-Z)
Numbers (0-9)
Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

‘Last Night in Soho’ Review: Edgar Wright’s Retro Horror Has Its Heart in the Sixties and Its Head All Over the Place

The British director's boyish genre nostalgia only goes so far in an underwritten, strangely unscary time-hopping horror.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

‘Mothers’ Instinct’ Review: Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain Primly Do Battle in a Loopy Suburban Psychodrama 5 days ago
‘Who by Fire’ Review: A Canadian Cabin-in-the-Woods Getaway Goes Strangely and Rivetingly Awry 1 week ago
‘Close to You’ Review: Elliot Page Makes an Affecting Big-Screen Return in a Fragile Homecoming Drama 2 weeks ago

Have you ever noticed how the icily dramatic opening strings in “You’re My World,” Cilla Black’s earnest, bawling-on-the-bathroom-floor ballad from 1965, could just as easily be a shivery horror theme by Bernard Herrmann? Edgar Wright has, and uses the likeness to briefly spine-tingling effect early in “ Last Night in Soho “: As ’60s-fixated Gen-Z fashion student Eloise ( Thomasin McKenzie ) finds herself somehow transported in time to the Swinging London world of naive party girl and aspiring chanteuse Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), those strings signal not just the dreamy collision of timelines, but a darkening of tone and genre, as Eloise’s rosy nostalgia for an era she never inhabited is soon invaded by blood-dripping violence and threat.

It’s a great needle-drop, from a filmmaker who has made them a trademark of his work, and it’s the one moment in which Wright’s murky, middling blend of horror and time-traveling fantasy briefly makes the heart quicken. Otherwise, “Last Night in Soho” is a surprising misfire, all the more disappointing for being made with such palpable care and conviction. Wright’s particular affections for B-movies, British Invasion pop and a fast-fading pocket of urban London may be written all over the film, but they aren’t compellingly written into it, ultimately swamping the thin supernatural sleuth story at its heart.

Which is to say that Wright has lovingly made “Last Night in Soho” for himself and, well, it’s not clear who else. Juvenile characterizations and plotting lean into YA territory while a few grisly spurts of sex and gore suggest otherwise. There’s a feminist undertow to its study of young women manipulated and misled by toxic masculinity, but the female characters themselves are blandly imperilled cyphers. Earlier comic trappings give way to a more sustained, serious-minded exercise in spooking the audience, but horror-heads are unlikely to find it particularly scary. (Never mind, it wasn’t very funny to begin with either.) At a certain point, even the period music cues prove uninspired, albeit a consistent pleasure to listen to.

What it does have is McKenzie, never one to let an underwritten character thwart her best efforts, and whose sweetly open, porous, persistently worry-etched features couldn’t be more ideally suited to Eloise’s ingenuous, new-in-town outlook. Orphaned since the age of seven — after her mother, beset with mental illness, took her own life — and raised in the English countryside by her kindly, doting grandmother (Rita Tushingham), she has long nurtured dreams of becoming a fashion designer, and is finally headed to the London College of Fashion to make it happen.

Once there, Eloise swiftly sees the wisdom of her grandmother’s warning about the alienating effects of the Big Smoke, finding herself bullied by the college mean girls who mock her homemade couture and retro tastes. (Naturally, granny has instilled in her a love for Dusty Springfield and Mary Quant.) Rather than become the dorm-room wallflower, she instead seeks a room of her own, chancing upon a decoratively frozen-in-time garret in Fitzrovia, owned by eccentric elderly landlady Mrs. Collins (the late Diana Rigg, a sly, secretive presence in her final screen role).

That a freshman student can afford a whole studio to herself in central London is perhaps the first clue that things are headed in a fantastical direction, though the second is even more disconcerting: Shortly after moving in, Eloise finds that the room operates as a kind of portal to the mid-1960s life of past resident Sandie, who wants to be the next Cilla Black, but whose oily svengali (Matt Smith) is determined to push her into less wholesome forms of nighttime entertainment.

Finding her body somehow twinned with Sandie’s when she goes to sleep, Eloise is at first exhilarated to go traipsing through the seamily glamorous vintage Soho of her daydreams, in the perfect physical person of Anya Taylor-Joy — here, as in “The Queen’s Gambit,” proving herself ideally suited to whole-nine-yards ’60s styling. (Odile Dicks-Mireaux’s era-blending, sugar-spun costumes are a high point.) As Sandie’s story turns ever darker, however, Eloise senses she’s a witness to something unspeakable, nearly 60 years after the fact.

There’s promise in this premise, though a problem with Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ script is how quickly it reaches this point of realization, and how repetitively it runs in place for the remainder of the film’s inordinate two-hour running time. Red herrings are trailed long after they’ve become obviously irrelevant; a single variety of VFX-enhanced jump scare is recycled across multiple samey setpieces; a romance between Eloise and gentle, sensitive student John (Michael Ajao) stays stubbornly tentative.

One feels for Ajao, seemingly stuck with a character constructed as a #NotAllMen rejoinder to the abusive masculinity on display elsewhere, minus any personality of his own. Fascinatingly, Eloise appears to have selected a fashion college staffed and attended only by women and straight men. As for McKenzie and Taylor-Joy, both among the brightest spots in proceedings, neither sees their character develop beyond varying degrees of wide-eyed and terrorized.

You could counter that many of the Hammer Horror and giallo films woven into “Last Night in Soho’s” vintage fabric (the 1972 Hammer effort “Straight on Till Morning,” also starring Tushingham, seems one of several specific reference points) didn’t treat their female characters all that differently, though Wright’s film also strives for a postmodern, politically updated perspective that it only intermittently hits.

Aesthetically, meanwhile, he and cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung go less overboard on the lurid genre pastiche than you might expect, just where you could forgive some iridescent, ketchup-splashed excess. “Last Night in Soho” tacitly mourns the present-day gentrification of the titular district, where anonymous office slabs and bougie chains are fast replacing the red-light delights of old, to safer but less characterful effect. Yet Wright’s film feels itself part-gentrified, dressing up cheap genre thrills in a distanced, dignifying gauze of nostalgia, and all the less fun for it.

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition), Sept. 4, 2021. (Also in Toronto Film Festival.) Running time: 117 MIN.

Production: (U.K.) A Focus Features release of a Focus Features, Film4 presentation, in association with Perfect World Pictures of a Working Title, Complete Fiction production. Producers: Nira Park, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Edgar Wright. Executive producers: James Biddle, Rachael Prior, Daniel Battsek, Ollie Madden.
Crew: Director: Edgar Wright. Screenplay: Edgar Wright, Krysty Wilson-Cairns, from a story by Wright. Camera: Chung-hoon Chung. Editor: Paul Machliss. Music: Steven Price.
With: Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Diana Rigg, Terence Stamp, Rita Tushingham, Matt Smith, Michael Ajao, Synnøve Karlsen.

More From Our Brands

Will trump be punished for attacking judge’s daughter he doesn’t think so, puerto rico’s most expensive listing is a $49 million penthouse, mlb union head tony clark sees pay jump $2m to $4.25m, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, evil eps promise to answer at least three of show’s big mysteries in final season — find out which ones, verify it's you, please log in.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

“Last Night in Soho,” Reviewed: A Flashy but Facile Anti-Nostalgia Trip

By Richard Brody

A young woman puts earrings on in a mirror as another young woman looks on.

Sometimes a movie clearly represents a filmmaker’s effort to say something, to send a proverbial message. In Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho,” the message gets garbled in transit between the film’s epigrammatic conceit and its cinematic form. It’s shaped like a classic coming-of-age tale: a young provincial, Eloise Turner (Thomasin McKenzie), goes to the metropolis to realize her dreams and, in the process, has her illusions dispelled. The script (which Wright co-wrote with Krysty Wilson-Cairns) expands this concept into a social history that fuses with horror-movie tropes to reveal an extravaganza of stifled nightmares that Eloise will have to confront in order to succeed. But the form that is imposed on the film’s significant and worthy ideas ends up stifling their clear and considered expression.

Eloise, who’s eighteen, is an aspiring fashion designer whose bedroom, in the house in Cornwall where she lives with her grandmother, Peggy (Rita Tushingham), is a shrine to the pop culture of the swinging London of the mid-sixties. It’s a period that Peggy looks back on nostalgically. She has raised Eloise on the music and the myths of that era, and Eloise heads to the London College of Fashion in order to fulfill her retro visions. But the backstory that explains this quest seems borrowed from a screenwriters’ manual of prefabricated motives. Eloise’s mother once had similar ambitions, but London (as Peggy explains) was too hard for her; she was also mentally ill, and died by suicide when Eloise was seven. (Eloise never knew her father.) Thus, Eloise goes to London on a heroine’s journey of ancestral redemption—and, in the process, faces up to the misogynist monstrosity of swinging London that rendered it unendurable for her mother and for other women who ended up destroyed by it.

An overly complicated and contrived series of setups turns Eloise’s life in the city, which starts in a sterile, modern dormitory, into a haunted-house tale. (Fair warning: some spoilers ahead.) Eloise has a roommate from Hell, the vain and envious Jocasta (Synnove Karlsen), and when, on the first night in the dorm, Eloise ends up bedless because of a wild party, she rents a room in a private home owned by Ms. Collins (the late Diana Rigg) that’s, coincidentally, well preserved in sixties styles—of an altogether different sort from that of her bedroom in Cornwall, rumpled and functionally un-chic. Eloise falls asleep in her new room, and in her dreams she sees herself back in mid-sixties London as an aspiring pop singer with a blond bouffant and a pink tent dress who aggressively pushes her way into a night club, into an interview with a slick young operator named Jack (Matt Smith), and into a job backup dancing at a burlesque club. Yet this alter-Eloise turns out to be another character altogether—a young woman of those times named Sandie (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), whose increasingly troubled world Eloise witnesses in her nightly dreams. Eloise is a virtual presence, an observer who is unable to interact with Sandie. But, as she bears silent witness to the degradations and dangers that Sandie endures, Eloise begins to make desperate efforts to intervene, to break the one-way mirror of transparent silence that lets her see and not be seen, except by us viewers.

Unlike the films of such great modern stylists as Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, and the three Ter(r)ences—Davies, Malick, and Nance—Wright’s movie offers an illustrated screenplay, in which images deliver and adorn the text rather than embody its ideas. Nonetheless, the images in “Last Night in Soho” are often fleetingly ingenious. Wright excels at varying his pace, at mixing slow builds with sharp reveals, at developing his story with incremental logic that gets gleefully bumped off course by the sudden introduction of new, surprising details realized with imaginative effects. In one sequence, Sandie comes down the sweeping steps of a night club, and Eloise appears alongside her in multiple strips of vertical mirrors. In another, as Sandie dances with Jack, her identity flashes back and forth between her face and Eloise’s in the course of a single swinging shot. The most powerful effect is the recurrence, in a virtual fusion of Sandie’s vision and Eloise’s, of men who torment Sandie, in the form of zombies whose appalling likeness is conjured through stark effects involving focus and double exposure (like red-and-blue anaglyph 3-D images seen without 3-D glasses).

Yet such pleasantly jolting moments are yoked to a drama of absurdly proliferating intricacy amid ever more simplistic resolutions. (Indeed, the plot points seem created merely to give rise to effects, with little thought about their causes.) There are spiked drinks—offered by women, with no sexual motive. The movie’s attitudes about sex work seem borrowed from Victorian schoolrooms. The complications include mistaken identity, a prostitution ring, a police investigation. Through it all, there’s the looming but vague image of Eloise’s late mother, who remains so undefined as to become a symbol of nothing. There is, of course, a charming romance with a caring and earnest young classmate named John (Michael Ajao), whose experience, as a Black man in London, is reduced to a one-liner about sympathizing with Eloise’s feeling of not belonging.

By far the most fascinating and moving aspects of “Last Night in Soho” involve Eloise’s family story, the convergence of personal and cultural legacies through the generations in the experience of her mother and grandmother. But the movie leaves these connections unspecified and undetailed. It could have been a film about the nature of the past, the paths of access to it, the creation and transmission of myths (which, of course, can’t be dispelled without being identified), the mores that prevailed beneath those myths, their role in forming and deforming the cultural objects that endure. Instead, Wright illuminates neither the present nor the past, neither the character who’s seeking to make her way in the present nor her understanding of the roots of her own artistic mission. Rather than fusing its substance and style, “Last Night in Soho” sacrifices the former to the latter, thus revealing its commercial cynicism. While apparently debunking nostalgia, Wright only feeds it. He doesn’t appear to have any real interest in exploring the infamous ways of the past beyond straining after today’s storytelling trends—which is to say, straining after popularity itself.

New Yorker Favorites

Why the last snow on Earth may be red.
When Toni Morrison was a young girl, her father taught her an important lesson about work .
The fantastical, earnest world of haunted dolls on eBay .
Can neuroscience help us rewrite our darkest memories ?
The anti-natalist philosopher David Benatar argues that it would be better if no one had children ever again .
What rampant materialism looks like, and what it costs .
Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

“Love Lies Bleeding” and the Perils of Genre

By Justin Chang

Last Night in Soho Review

Another almost-musical from edgar wright..

Last Night in Soho will debut in theaters on Oct. 29.

Last Night in Soho is the horror equivalent of an up-tempo cover song: it’s a fun romp with some impressive bells and whistles, even if it can’t capture the magic of the classics to which it owes its whole existence. Director/co-writer Edgar Wright, otherwise known for his comedic work with Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, crafts a psychological thriller about moving to London from a small English town; when it comes to that specific dynamic, he’s quite adept at creating a feeling of being overwhelmed. On the other hand, the story’s supernatural and mystery elements burst to life only on a few occasions — that too, when they’re overtly calling attention to their influences — but the film also moves smoothly and rhythmically enough to be enjoyable for the most part.

While it doesn’t have the same gimmick or even genre as Baby Driver — Wright’s most recent effort, itself an homage to Walter Hill’s crime thriller The Driver (1978) — it feels cut from the same musical cloth, opening with a stage-like silhouette of teenager Eloise Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) dancing while clad in a self-designed dress made from newspapers, before the lights come up to reveal a quaint countryside bedroom littered with mannequins. Eloise has just been accepted to study fashion in London, and despite her grandmother’s warnings about the city’s seedy characters — its leering men in particular — she’s excited to go. She also has a sixth sense, which she and her grandmother discuss with surprising frankness. This allows her to catch glimpses of her late mother in her bedroom mirror, and while this part of her backstory never amounts to much (beyond Eloise’s partial reason for studying fashion, since it was her mother’s dream as well), the matter-of-fact nature of her ability sets up a tale in which more inviting (and eventually, more macabre) visions take center stage.

What's your favorite Edgar Wright movie?

However, the film’s strongest elements have little to do with the paranormal. When Eloise arrives at her university dorms, she immediately stands out as a country mouse in a sea of fancy city folk, especially her roommate, Jacosta, a two-faced mean-girl type draped in designer outfits, who actress Synnøve Karlsen layers into a fascinating and fully fledged character using little more than fleeting glances that betray deep insecurities. While Jacosta has fewer scenes with Eloise as the film goes on (she’s practically absent in the second half), she helps paint a more complete picture of the crushing weight felt by the incoming students. Where Jacosta responds to the pressure by fashioning a hardened personality, Eloise nearly breaks, and in an act of self-preservation, moves to a small, unassuming apartment leased out to her by a stern landlady who radiates an uncanny warmth, Miss Collins (Diana Rigg).

The apartment’s old-fashioned décor gels perfectly with Eloise’s love for clothing and music of the past (not unlike Wright’s own retro cinematic sensibilities, which are on full display beginning with a classic rock soundtrack). She loves the place, even if the flashing lights from a nearby French bakery fill the room with alternating washes of red and blue, an excuse to create occasional visual resemblance to Italian giallo horror films about young women in new academic settings — like Suspiria (1977) and Phenomena (1985) by Dario Argento — even though this aesthetic is rarely used to any real dramatic or environmental effect. Eloise falls even deeper in love with the apartment on her first night there, when she’s whisked away into a dream of Soho in the mid 1960s. Night after night, she closes her eyes and enters the story of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a young singer who once lived in the same room and whose wide-eyed artistic dreams match her own, and Jack (Matt Smith), a suave nightclub manager whose interest in Sandie seems to straddle a fine line between business and romance.

New Fall Movies 2021: 40 Films to Look Forward To

Wright puts on a dazzling visual display when he brings Eloise, and us, into this world. Eloise alternatingly sees things through Sandie’s eyes, and from behind mirrors in which she stands in for Sandie’s reflection, as if she’s both a participant and observer in a lushly designed period film with eye-popping sets and costumes. By day, memories of Sandie begin to influence Eloise’s work while by night, Eloise dances her way through Sandie’s experiences, as a combination of seamless digital tricks and bold choreography results in fascinating long-take sequences, where Smith switches between swinging around ballrooms with Mackenzie and Taylor-Joy, as if the two actresses were occupying the same space. However, this dreamy frolic soon gives way to something darker, both as Sandie’s story takes winding turns, and as Eloise crosses paths with a strange old man (Terence Stamp) who might have a connection to these events.

Before long, Eloise’s visions begin to reflect her fears (and her grandmother’s fears) of encroaching male impositions. As a young girl in a crowded new city, she has to put up with more harassment than she’s used to, and as Sandie’s parallel story becomes a charged version of her own, it results in waking nightmares of faceless men, whose twisted appearance pays homage to Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) — another psychological thriller from which Last Night in Soho borrows several cues, though not as thoughtfully — and who embody Eloise’s fears of assault and unwanted sexual attention.

Given Eloise’s sheltered nature and her new university environment, her fears lie adjacent to a more general anxiety surrounding sex, partying, and adult life. These, in turn, end up contrasted by the presence of a boyish suitor, her sweet and helpful classmate John (Michael Ajao), who seems almost dimension-less in his one-tracked simplicity, though not without narrative reason. It works when the film wants to provide Eloise with a reprieve, and an opportunity to return to the carefree innocence of her pre-college days, but John also feels incredibly malformed when Wright attempts to use his Blackness as a slapdash parallel to Eloise’s feelings of outsidership (this extends to little more than stray jokes about London’s demographics).

When Eloise is pulled further into Sandie’s harrowing mystery, Wright’s influences become more overt, between visual nods to various Hitchcock films, and several attempts — both occasional and unsuccessful — at the kind of unsettling voyeurism Michael Powell cemented in the collective horror consciousness with the slasher movie Peeping Tom (1960). At its most charged, it creates moments that feel ripped right out of classic giallos, as the camera closes in and fixates on actresses’ eyes (both directly and in reflections) and Wright skillfully crafts a few operatic moments in the vein of gory schlock-horror, but these are often fleeting, and they feel disjointed since they clash with the film’s otherwise polished approach.

The Sandie-centric mystery presses against the walls of Eloise’s sanity, allowing Mackenzie to let loose with the kind of fearless, woman-gone-mad horror performance that was more common in decades past (and often, in cheaper productions). But that mystery also proves to be the film’s undoing when it matters most; it’s generally unengaging and not all that hard to figure out, so when its twists and turns ought to be shocking, they elicit only shrugs.

However, despite the eventual third act failings — including moments when Wright’s thematic approach to misogyny begins to feel flimsy — Last Night in Soho has more than enough momentum and visual flair to ensure that even its most familiar moments are never boring.

Best Reviewed Movies of 2021

Let's have a look at the films released in 2021 that were scored the best of the best by IGN's critics. But first, a few notes: IGN rates its movies on a scale of 0-10. The "best reviewed" movies listed here all scored 8 or above. The IGN review scale labels any film scored 9 as "amazing" and 10 as "masterpiece".

Now, if only Wright would make an actual musical…

Last Night in Soho’s biggest strengths and weaknesses come from the same place: its attempts to replicate much better psychological horror from decades past. However, despite everything that doesn’t work, its musical energy keeps it fun.

More Reviews by Siddhant Adlakha

Ign recommends.

Sam Raimi Responds to Rumors of Spider-Man 4 Starring Tobey Maguire: 'I'm Not Actually Working on It Yet'

Last Night In Soho Review

29 Oct 2021

Last Night In Soho

Edgar Wright is a master of turning an ordinary setting into something unexpected. An average London pub becomes a fort during a zombie apocalypse in Shaun Of The Dead . A sleepy West Country village plays host to violent murders in Hot Fuzz , and in Baby Driver , the sun-baked back streets of Atlanta become a playground for high-speed heists.

For Last Night In Soho , Wright transforms London into a ghost town, although it’s not the streets that are haunted, but rather the women who walk them. His first film to be told from a female perspective, aided by co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns , who previously penned the emotionally rich screenplay for 1917 , Wright splits the city in two, between fashion designer Eloise’s ( Thomasin McKenzie ) present day, and aspiring singer Sandy’s ( Anya Taylor-Joy ) increasingly murky past in glamorous-on-top-seedy-underneath 1960s Soho, which Eloise witnesses while sleeping.

The young designer is a fanatic of the era; she idolises Twiggy, Audrey Hepburn and the artists whose timeless vocals are pressed onto her records. Her love of vintage fashion, paired with her burgeoning talent, has led her to London, where her country roots and homemade clothes make her an outsider to her more polished peers. Their spiteful spurning drives her to a bedsit just north of Soho run by Miss Collins ( Diana Rigg , in her final onscreen appearance), where her spiritual relationship with Sandy begins.

The film has struck gold in the casting of its twin leads. Taylor-Joy, whose Golden Age screen presence was the defining win of The Queen’s Gambit , continues to captivate with her set stare and hypnotic poise, bolstered by thick false eyelashes and chiffon. Her room-stopping showmanship is matched, however, by McKenzie’s wide-eyed spectator, whose guilt and grief over her dead mother, who she lost to suicide at seven, draw her protectively to her unaware new friend.

The film is at its strongest when laser-focused on horror. The monsters that infiltrate Eloise’s world summon fresh visceral terror.

At first Eloise is as infatuated with Sandy’s life as she is with those of her other ’60s faves. Her first nocturnal encounter shows the talented chanteuse meeting Matt Smith’s louche talent manager Jack and falling for his honey-tongued promises, while around them, Wright lovingly explores his own fandom of the era through the plush, mirrored interiors and a gargantuan, brightly lit marquee for Thunderball .

Eloise wakes to find a souvenir love bite to match Sandy’s, though as she’s drawn further into her world, tailing her new idol as Jack turns increasingly nasty, the marks become more psychological and the film pivots fully towards a more conventional horror. This feels like a pointed departure for Wright. A few of his directorial calling cards linger effectively — the lightning-quick editing, the loaded needle drops — but this is certainly his least comedic film to date, the spare use of humour never undercutting the chilling premise.

Instead, Wright and Wilson-Cairns lean into concept and genre to push a hard message about intergenerational male violence. Across a macabre spectrum of trauma that ranges from the casually framed threats of a present-day cab driver to the cyclical torment that comes with Sandy’s nightclub career, the two women are pushed to heightened extremes.

Some of the underlying fabric is patchy; commentary on mental health and the industry in which Sandy works is thin, and Michael Ajao’s John, injected into Eloise’s life to show that not all men are heinous brutes, is little more than a narrative trope. The film is at its strongest when laser-focused on horror. Some of its more ambitious scares pay homage to other filmmakers, but the design and physicality of the monsters that infiltrate Eloise’s world summon fresh visceral terror. Park Chan-Wook’s regular cinematographer, Chung Chung-hoon, enhances Wright’s visions of the past and present, finding cinematic dread in everything, from the gauche, neon lights that bleed into Eloise’s room to the chandelier-lit mirrors that feature in some of the most sophisticated sequences not only in the film but the director’s body of work.

Wright’s ambition has always been his most commendable asset, and here, with his back turned to the buddy comedies of his past, is where it burns brightest, bringing a propulsive energy to this uncharted new territory. Last Night In Soho is indeed a departure for the filmmaker, but one that could pave the way for even more compelling, risk-taking work to come.

Movies | 19 01 2022

Movies | 06 10 2021

Movies | 09 09 2021

Movies | 08 09 2021

Movies | 01 09 2021

Movies | 31 08 2021

Movies | 27 08 2021

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

DVD & Streaming

Last Night in Soho

Drama , Horror , Thriller

Content Caution

A well-dressed woman and man dance on a sidewalk.

In Theaters

October 29, 2021
Thomasin McKenzie as Eloise (‘Ellie’); Anya Taylor-Joy as Sandie; Matt Smith as Jack; Synnove Karlsen as Jocasta; Terence Stamp as Silver Haired Gentleman; Diana Rigg as Ms. Collins

Home Release Date

January 4, 2022
Edgar Wright

Distributor

Focus Features

Movie Review

Ellie loves the idea of fashion and the joy of designing it. It’s something you could say she got from her mom, just like she got her passion for music of the ’60s from her Gran. But there’s something else she got from her mother. Gran calls it her “gift,” but anyone else would probably label it much more harshly.

Ellie sees things. She might see her dead mom in a mirror giving her a smiling encouragement. Or she might catch some other oddity from the corner of her eye. It’s a mental quirk that some say was the kind of schizophrenia that drove her mother to suicide. But Ellie doesn’t talk about any of that. And she keeps her gift buttoned away, nice and tidy.

In fact, Ellie knows that keeping things buttoned up will be an absolute necessity now that she’s heading from her little town to the big city of London. She was recently accepted into the prestigious London College of Fashion. It’s a dream she’s worked for, and saved for, her whole young life. And she doesn’t want to mess it up.

When she gets to school, though, things aren’t exactly as she invisioned them. Even though London was once home to Petula Clark and Audrey Hepburn, it’s now a bit shadowy and predatory, as many big cities are.

Then there’s her narcissitic roommate, Jocasta, who’s nearly impossible to live with. From Jocasta’s constant jibes to the fact that she drags random guys into their shared room for sex, it becomes clear that Ellie will need to find different lodgings.

Soon after, she spots an advert on the school message board and moves into a creaky old house belonging to Ms. Collins. She’s a strict landlord, but Ellie doesn’t mind strict rules and she loves the old atmosphere of the house. It reminds her of yesterday’s East London, the Soho of the 1960s.

In fact, during her first night at Ms. Collins’ house, Ellie dreams of stepping back into the mod and sparkling streets of ’60s Soho. She even follows along behind an aspiring singer named Sandie: a self-confident young woman who is everything Ellie wishes she was. In the dream, Ellie switches places with Sandie from time to time, and it’s a thrill.

It’s all so real and wonderful!

Ellie even makes drawings of Sandie’s dress and brings them to class. She dyes her mousy brown hair blonde, just like Sandie’s. She buys vintage clothes. Oh, and she dreams of Sandie and her life, again and again, night after night.

Sandie’s world seems almost as real as Ellie’s.

Maybe even a little realer .

But even a magical Soho of the’60s can have it’s problems. And sometimes dreams … are more than you think they are.

Positive Elements

Though Ellie has a difficult time adjusting to her new surroundings, she does end up becoming good friends with a fellow student named John. He’s kind and gentle. And he makes it clear that he “knows what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong.”

John soon recognizes that Ellie is dealing with some unexplained emotional struggles, but he doesn’t back away. He steps up to help the frightened young woman and give her whatever support he can.

Eventually, the two become more than friends. They fall in love, and both put their lives on the line to protect one another.

Spiritual Elements

Ellie sees “visions” of her deceased mom from time to time. She then starts seeing ghost-like images of a large number men who tend to swarm toward her and pop up around London to follow her. Later, we find out that these ghoulish specters are the ghosts of people who were murdered by a single killer.

Ellie gets a job in a pub and asks her boss if she believes in spirits. The woman replies that she only knows about bottled spirits. But, she notes, perhaps “all these high spirits have soaked into the walls.”

Jocasta derisively tells other girls that she gets a “born-again Christian vibe” from Ellie.

Sexual Content

A ’60s stage performance in a bawdy men’s club showcases a number of women in very revealing outfits that sport cleavage and near-naked backsides. The female performers are also compelled to sexually service some of the male patrons. We see a glimpse of implied oral sex and other sexual activities.

We see one young woman dancing and drinking with a parade of men. The scene is displayed in a montage suggesting that she is soon consumed by a lifestyle of booze and paid sex. We then we see her in lingerie laying on a bed as men approach her. In one scene, a woman is in bed with money on her bedside table as a guy steps out of the bathroom in his underwear.

Sandie kisses and then has a steamy make out session with a guy named Jack. The two fall onto her bed while removing their clothes before the camera cuts away. It’s later implied that Jack makes money both as a talent agent and a pimp. We see him kissing and fondling various women.

Ellie looks on these interactions while in her dream/vision state. And then while in her own bed she is approached by ghoulish visions of men. One of them removes his shirt and unbuckles his pants before Ellie fully wakes. The camera catches a fairly quick glimpse of ghost-like men standing shoulder to shoulder in a small room, all in various stages of undress. At least one of those men displays full frontal nudity.

Ellie and John go to a costume party that showcases women in everything from a full latex suit to cleavage-baring tops and short skirts. Men and women kiss at the party. Ellie and John end up kissing, too, and decide to sneak back into her room for sex. They make out on her bed, dressed only in their underwear, before a ghostly vision terrorizes Ellie once more.

We see Ellie and her roommate, Jocasta, in underwear and bras. After coming back from her dream world—where she slipped in and out, trading places with Sandie—Ellie discovers she has a hickie on her neck.

Someone tells Ellie, “Being a whore is like acting sometimes.” Young guys at a local London pub make some decidedly crude sexual overtures to the female college students on hand.

Violent Content

[ Spoiler Warning ] Though it’s not evident at first, the stylish and creative elements of this story swirl around a serial killer who murders scores of people. In that light, we’re splashed with some pretty bloody moments that only fully make sense once this dark tale plays out.

We see a number of men who are stabbed and hacked with a large knife from multiple angles in different scenes. We’re also shown corpses that were stashed beneath floorboards and ghoulish ghosts of murdered people. Were told of someone who committed suicide, and later we see someone slash her own throat while sitting in a room that’s being consumed by a raging fire. (Ellies roommate places bets that Ellie will “slash her wrists before Christmas.”)

Men pay to physically and sexually abuse women. And in that light, Ellie is attacked, punched in the face, chased by deadly menaces and painfully thumped to the floor. She fights back against an attacker, kicking the person in the face.

An innocent is stabbed in the stomach with a butcher knife. A drunken man in a club is punched in the face. A woman is held at bay by a knife held to her throat. Someone smashes into a mirror, and Ellie is left to pick up the broken shards of bloody glass. A woman slashes a man’s face with her fingernails.

Ellie has several flash visions of someone covered in blood. An older man gets hit by a speeding car, and we see his bloodied corpse. A house is accidentally set on fire, transforming into a raging pyre that nearly traps several people inside.

Crude or Profane Language

Sixteen f-words and a handful of s-words join multiple uses of “b–tard” and the c-word. God’s and Jesus’ names are both misused some three times apiece. The British crudity “bloody” is spit out once or twice. Women are called “whores” and “sluts.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Many people—especially those in the ’60s—smoke cigarettes regularly. People drink heavily—beer, mix drinks and champagne—in pubs and clubs both in the present and in the past. Some get drunk and stagger around. Ellie and John are given spiked drinks at a party. Ellie gets a job at a pub and drinks a gin and tonic during her interview.

We catch a passing glimpse of someone inserting a hypodermic needle. Ellie is given a drink that’s been spiked with poison. She stumbles around weakly before finding help.

Other Negative Elements

Jocasta is narcissistically driven and badmouths Ellie and others in an effort to elevate herself. A cabby starts out seeming like a nice guy, but it soon becomes evident that he is a predator.

Director Edgar Wright has pieced together Last Night in Soho with an interesting blend of horror and psychological thrills. He creates a brilliantly stylish London-in-the-’60s vibe that quickly sucks viewers into the creative mystery at hand. And performances by Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy and Diana Rigg all sparkle.

That doesn’t, however, mean that this film is free of problems. Not by a long shot. Style, nostalgia, and cinematic panache can’t hide this pic’s cringe-worthy levels of content—including pungent profanity, darkly misogynistic sexuality and hack-‘n’-slash goop.

Anyone “Wishin’ and Hopin’” for a family night at the flicks, or a carefree date night, should definitely look elsewhere.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

Latest Reviews

Someone Like You

The Beautiful Game

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Weekly Reviews Straight to your Inbox!

Today's news
Reviews and deals
Climate change
2024 election
Fall allergies
Health news
Mental health
Sexual health
Family health
So mini ways
Unapologetically
Buying guides

Entertainment

How to Watch
My watchlist
Stock market
Biden economy
Personal finance
Stocks: most active
Stocks: gainers
Stocks: losers
Trending tickers
World indices
US Treasury bonds
Top mutual funds
Highest open interest
Highest implied volatility
Currency converter
Basic materials
Communication services
Consumer cyclical
Consumer defensive
Financial services
Industrials
Real estate
Mutual funds
Credit cards
Credit card rates
Balance transfer credit cards
Business credit cards
Cash back credit cards
Rewards credit cards
Travel credit cards
Checking accounts
Online checking accounts
High-yield savings accounts
Money market accounts
Personal loans
Student loans
Car insurance
Home buying
Options pit
Investment ideas
Research reports
Fantasy football
Pro Pick 'Em
College Pick 'Em
Fantasy baseball
Fantasy hockey
Fantasy basketball
Download the app
Daily fantasy
Scores and schedules
GameChannel
World Baseball Classic
Premier League
CONCACAF League
Champions League
Motorsports
Horse racing
Newsletters

New on Yahoo

Privacy Dashboard

‘Last Night in Soho’ Film Review: Edgar Wright Salutes the Sleazy Glamour and Dangerous Romance of London

Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

Mixing glorious pastiche and gory ghost story, director Edgar Wright ’s “ Last Night in Soho ” will stand as one of the best London movies of the new decade.

That’s probably because, while it enjoys the present-day (or at least pre-pandemic) bustle of Soho, it positively revels in the area’s charismatically seedy past and its still-palpable legacy.

Much like his mentor, Quentin Tarantino , who gets a thanks in the closing credits but to whom the excellent soundtrack choices also owe a huge debt, Wright creates a faithful yet playful homage to a lost and legendary Swinging ’60s London that is hard to find these days but whose spirit remains vibrantly alive in movies, documentaries, photos, stories, a few buildings and, of course, hundreds of songs.

Since the current COVID-19 pandemic practically emptied Soho of its restaurants, nightlife and office workers (many British film production companies included), one might regard even the contemporary strands of the time-toggling narrative as some kind of ghost story; anyone who strolled its streets during the recent lockdowns can tell you of its chillingly sad silence, as if the heart of London had stopped beating.

So it’s a pleasure watching it re-animate and come alive again, at least in this much-delayed release. In the modern storyline, Thomasin McKenzie plays young student Eloise Turner, who is accepted into the London School of Fashion, keen yet wary of what happened to her late mother in the big city many years before. As her Gran (played by 1960s social-realist star Rita Tushingham) warns her: “London can be a lot.”

Arriving from rural Cornwall, Ellie, who is obsessed with all things 1960s, even carries a classic Dansette record player as hand luggage. But her eccentric, old-fashioned ways mean student halls are too bitchy for her, and she eventually takes lodgings in a dingy room just north of Soho, at the top of a creaky house run by mysterious landlady Mrs. Collins. The old lady is played by the late Diana Rigg, in what turned out to be the iconic star of “The Avengers” (the ’60s telly series, not the Marvel movies, dummy) and former Bond girl’s last role before her death almost exactly one year ago. See, the movies really do keep the ghosts alive.

This attic room, filled with the waft of garlic from the old French bistro next door, gives sensitive Ellie visions of a particular past inhabitant, glamorous wannabe showgirl Sandie, played with a brittle star quality by Anya Taylor-Joy. Like Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” Wright romanticizes the bright lights of Soho as Ellie finds herself connected in her dreams with the story of Sandie and her attempts to make it as a cabaret singer on the Soho scene.

On a breathless night out at the Cafe de Paris, Sandie meets wide-boy manager Jack (Matt Smith) who gets her an audition at the insalubrious Rialto club, for which she does a breathy rendition of Petula Clark’s “Downtown” — you know, where the neon lights are are much brighter and you can always go, and all that.

Initially, the story of Sandie in which Ellie inserts herself, flashes back only in her dreams and becomes the inspiration for her first-year fashion project at college, much to her tutor’s admiration and encouragement. But the deeper Ellie goes in her psycho-geographical explorations, the more dangerous and creepy the real story of Sandie becomes, as she’s drawn into the infamous Soho underworld of spivs and leering gentlemen, and Ellie’s dreams transform into waking nightmares, pulling her beneath London’s modern surface to scratch at the sordid past.

Wright — taking another, more irritating, leaf from Tarantino’s book — requested on social media before the out-of-competition world-premiere screening at Venice on Saturday night, that reviewers don’t reveal too much about the dual storylines and leave viewers, like fresh-faced Ellie herself, to discover the worlds for themselves upon the film’s October U.S. and U.K. releases.

So I will restrict myself to saying that, while I was worried Wright might lose control of an excellent premise, this is by far the director’s best film since his “Shaun of the Dead” debut, using a soundtrack of The Kinks, Walker Brothers, Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield (among many other rarer cuts, such as the Graham Bond Organisation and James Ray) to propel us on a hugely enjoyable, campy and stylish, yet genuinely scary path that also touches on mental health issues, sexual predators and the demons of creativity.

But mainly it’s about Soho and the layers of grimy history on every street corner of such an area of such a storied city, where echoes still reverberate down its alleys, in its basement drinking dens and in its die-hard denizens. Watch out for one particular swinging-London screen icon who practically embodies the time and the place.

“Last Night in Soho” — the title is taken from a song by those Tarantino soundtrack favorites Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich — is rich enough and entertaining enough as a spectacle on it own merits, anchored by excellent work from its two young leads, who should attract new audiences perhaps unfamiliar with the place and the genre. Never mind the stale garlic, beer and cigarette smoke; you can practically smell the ghosts of great ’60s London films like Ken Hughes’ “The Small World of Sammy Lee,” John Schlesinger’s “Darling” and Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion.”

But it’s as a tribute to what makes cities so alluring and so dangerous that perhaps Wright’s film succeeds most, becoming like one of the stories it’s so in thrall to, something that can ensure the myths, the dirty pink glamour, and the edgy romance of Soho’s sleazy nocturnal dreams will survive to inspire and haunt another generation.

“Last Night in Soho” opens in U.S. theaters Oct. 22.

.aspect-ratio-box { height: 0; overflow: hidden; padding-top: calc(720 / 1280 * 100%); background: #f9f9f9; position: relative; margin-bottom:30px; } .aspect-ratio-box-inside { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

Read original story ‘Last Night in Soho’ Film Review: Edgar Wright Salutes the Sleazy Glamour and Dangerous Romance of London At TheWrap

Vontae Davis, former NFL star, found dead in Miami home at age 35

Davis published a children's book about his life in 2019

Mock Draft Monday with Field Yates: You will be shocked how early Bo Nix goes

'Mock Draft Monday' rolls on ESPN's Field Yates joining Matt Harmon to break down his latest mock draft. Harmon has Yates break down his mock draft methodology and what goes into his decision making when placing certain prospects on certain teams.

Brock Purdy nearly doubles his salary due to a bonus from NFL's performance-based pay

Brock Purdy and other young NFL players had a nice payday.

NFL mock draft: Trades galore as one of the best QB prospects slides outside the top 10

Charles McDonald and Nate Tice's latest mock draft has five quarterbacks off the board in the top 13, a big-time weapon for Aaron Rodgers and some steals in the second half of the first round.

The 'extreme' Social Security move that actually makes sense

The election year battle over cherished retirement programs is a microcosm explaining why Washington doesn't solve solvable problems.

One fateful decision summed up North Carolina's Sweet 16 demise

Jae’Lyn Withers shot UNC's most important 3-pointer of the game when he had no business firing away. And now the No. 1 Tar Heels are going home.

Giants fans not happy after team removes tiles dedicated to family members outside Oracle Park

"It made me feel like they desecrated my mom’s and dad’s headstone on their grave."

Mets pitcher ejected for throwing behind Brewers' Rhys Hoskins a day after heated exchange

Rhys Hoskins had a big day for the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday, continuing his grudge match against the New York Mets.

Through 6 games, Dodgers hitters are showing exactly what they’re capable of: '1 through 9, it's gonna be a tough out'

Yes, the Dodgers have three MVPs atop their lineup, but it's the depth of their offense that will give opposing pitchers nightmares.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

For Parents
For Educators
Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

Get the app
Movie Reviews
Best Movie Lists
Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best TV Lists
Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
Common Sense Selections for TV
Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

Book Reviews
Best Book Lists
Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Game Reviews
Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Podcast Reviews
Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

App Reviews
Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

YouTube Channel Reviews
YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

Explaining the News to Our Kids

Family Tech Planners
Digital Skills
All Articles
Latino Culture
Black Voices
Asian Stories
Native Narratives
LGBTQ+ Pride
Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Last night in soho, common sense media reviewers.

Time traveling mystery drama has violence, language, sex.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Themes around coming out of your shell and becomin

Eloise is a strong-willed young woman, not bending

The movie has an empowering feminist narrative, as

There are graphic scenes of violence, including se

There is a brief sex scene, but no nudity on show.

There are two uses of the word "c--t." Countless u

Characters are seen quite clearly drinking Coca-Co

Smoking and drinking throughout. A character gets

Positive Messages

Themes around coming out of your shell and becoming your own person. Finding the strength to overcome a challenging time in your life. The film can be accused of condoning violence.

Positive Role Models

Eloise is a strong-willed young woman, not bending to the expectations of society and embracing her unconventionality. However, the London she moves to is filled with seedy men and gossipy girls. Parallels are drawn to the 1960s where Sandie, despite her talent, is treated poorly. She is referred to as a "creature" and called "blondie." Men are controlling and forceful. They imply that to make it in the entertainment industry, Sandie must "play the game," as well as sleep with "important" people.

Diverse Representations

The movie has an empowering feminist narrative, as the two leading characters -- both women -- are nuanced and well-rounded representations. This is despite all manner of sleazy, predatory, and inappropriate behavior from the men they encounter. There is a leading character of color, but the majority are White. In the scenes set in 1960s London, there is not much diversity in terms of race and ethnicity. But in the present day, there is greater representation.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

There are graphic scenes of violence, including sequences where men attack women, strangulation, and stabbings. Murders take place and there is much bloodshed. Characters have frightening and disturbing visions of ghosts, some intimidating, and some of a deceased parent. There are graphic suicide references. Characters engage in fist fights. Someone is run over and killed on the street with blood seen on the body. Characters also try to murder others with scissors, poison, and there's also the threat of a burning house. Character is pressured into having sex for money.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

There is a brief sex scene, but no nudity on show. There is also a scene where it's clear a character is performing oral sex on someone. Couples are shown engaging in foreplay. A character is coerced into sleeping with a series of different people for money. There are sex shops on the street and a burlesque-style show in one sequence. There are naked, male ghosts.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

There are two uses of the word "c--t." Countless uses of the word "f--k." There are derogatory terms used such as "bitch," "ho," "slut," and "whore." Also uses of the word "s--t" and a character is seeing doing an offensive hand gesture to another. "Jesus/Jesus Christ," "God," and "Oh my God" used as exclamations.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Characters are seen quite clearly drinking Coca-Cola and listening to music on famous, branded headphones.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Smoking and drinking throughout. A character gets a job in a pub, so naturally much alcohol is consumed there. Lots of characters smoke cigarettes, especially in sequences from the 1960s. A character in the present day is seen vaping. Characters do cocaine in the toilets at a nightclub. A character is seen injecting a substance -- believed to be heroin -- into their arm.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Last Night in Soho is a British coming-of-age drama from writer-director Edgar Wright with horror elements, bloody violence, and strong language. It follows a present-day teenager, Eloise ( Thomasin McKenzie ), who mysteriously travels back in time to 1966 London and ends up in the body of her singer idol, Sandy ( Anya Taylor-Joy ). Eloise and Sandy encounter a series of distasteful, unlikable people. Men lust after women, and seek to control and manipulate them. While girls from Eloise's college are bullies. The movie doesn't explicitly condone its strong and frequent violence -- there are various bloody murders -- but a blind eye is turned when it deems the victim deserving. Although not explicit, sex is frequently discussed and present, be it in London's sex shops or when a character is pressured into sleeping with people for money. In one scene, a woman is seen performing oral sex. There is much profanity, including two uses of "c--t" and multiple uses of "f--k" and "whore." Characters drink and smoke throughout -- the latter mostly in the 1960s, depicting that era -- and there is occasional drug use. The cast is mainly White, but there is a person of color in a leading role, and the film has an empowering undercurrent, with two strong female leads at its center. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (6)
Kids say (18)

Based on 6 parent reviews

Fantastic twists and turns!! Top-notch storytelling!

What's the story.

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO tells the story of Eloise ( Thomasin McKenzie ), an aspiring fashion designer who heads to London to begin college. Struggling to settle in, always something of an outsider, her days are secluded and lonely. But it's at night where she comes to life, as through her dreams she is able to travel back in time to the "Swinging Sixties," and it's here she encounters wannabe singer, Sandie ( Anya Taylor-Joy ).

Is It Any Good?

Edgar Wright has a very distinctive style and this time traveling coming-of-age mystery drama is straight out of his back catalog. Last Night in Soho is a movie that most certainly looks the part, with Wright having shot modern day London in a striking way, while the flashbacks to the city's "Swinging Sixties" is delectable viewing. The lighting and vibrancy makes for a film that cannot be faulted from a visual standpoint.

From a narrative one, however, it leaves much to be desired. It simply doesn't know when, or seemingly how, to end. The story just gets a little too ambitious and out of hand, losing sight of what made the first half so enjoyable: the characters. It truly is a movie of two halves. So while it does have an unsatisfying finale, thankfully the first act is so good that the experience of seeing the movie doesn't feel like a waste of time. What also helps, of course, is the fantastic soundtrack.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Last Night in Soho . Did the violent scenes help tell the story in an effective way? Was it shocking or thrilling? Why? Did the movie ever feel like it was condoning violence? Does exposure to violent media desensitize kids to violence?

Discuss the strong language used. Did it seem necessary or excessive? What did it contribute to the movie?

How was sex portrayed in the movie? Was it affectionate? Respectful? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values regarding sex and relationships.

What are they key differences between the two different time periods and what are the parallels? How are Eloise and Sandy treated by those around them? How are their experiences similar/different? Have we progressed as a society since the 1960s? If so, how?

How was smoking, drinking, and drug use portrayed? Were there consequences? Why is that important?

Movie Details

In theaters : October 29, 2021
On DVD or streaming : January 18, 2022
Cast : Thomasin McKenzie , Anya Taylor-Joy , Matt Smith
Director : Edgar Wright
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
Studios : Focus Features , Universal Pictures
Genre : Drama
Topics : Magic and Fantasy , History
Run time : 116 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : bloody violence, sexual content, language, brief drug material and brief graphic nudity
Last updated : November 7, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Baby Driver

Thriller movies, time travel movies, related topics.

Magic and Fantasy

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Screen Rant

Last night in soho review: wright's least comedic movie is still thrilling.

Last Night in Soho is a stylish and thrilling work from Wright, bolstered by an impressive lead performance from Thomasin McKenzie.

Director Edgar Wright is perhaps best known as a comedic filmmaker, with his Cornetto trilogy earning him a passionate following earlier in his career. More recently, Wright has started to expand his horizons, illustrating impressive range as a helmsman. While his 2017 offering Baby Driver had humor laced throughout, it was more notable for its intricately crafted action sequences set to a diverse soundtrack. Wright's evolution continues with Last Night in Soho , a psychological horror film that blends elements of time travel and mystery into an intriguing package. Last Night in Soho is a stylish and thrilling work from Wright, bolstered by an impressive lead performance from Thomasin McKenzie.

In Last Night in Soho , McKenzie stars as Eloise, an aspiring fashion designer who moves from the English countryside to London to attend fashion school there. Upon arriving, Eloise finds herself overwhelmed by life in the city and moves into a quiet house off-campus that reminds her of the comforts of home. While there, she finds herself mysteriously traveling back to 1960s London each night, becoming infatuated with the life of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a young woman with dreams of becoming a singer. What seems like a fairytale quickly turns into a nightmare that sees Eloise attempting to uncover some horrible truths.

Related: How Scary & Violent Is Last Night in Soho?

One of Wright's calling cards as a director is his penchant for visual storytelling, and that is on full display in Last Night in Soho . Wright uses scene composition and cues to establish everything from the film's setting to key character details, efficiently setting up Eloise as a lower-class social outcast eager to fit in. His usual energetic style is also present, helping Last Night in Soho move along at a brisk pace, keeping the viewer engaged. Audiences are transported back to the 1960s along with Eloise thanks to standout production and costume design that's period accurate and ambitious in scope. Wright also proves he's more than capable of handling pure horror, staging a number of sequences that are creepy and unnerving as Eloise confronts the harsh reality of her fantasy.

Strong performances are another hallmark of Last Night in Soho . McKenzie really carries the movie, painting Eloise as a quiet, wide-eyed outsider who's easy to sympathize with. As the film progresses, the performance becomes more demanding of the actress — particularly from an emotional perspective — and McKenzie is more than up for the challenge, truly selling Eloise's fragile mental state and sense of desperation. Taylor-Joy is essentially a dual lead, leaving an impression with a bold confidence that's the antithesis of Eloise's personality. The dichotomy has a bit of a Fight Club feel to it initially, creating a juxtaposition that's compelling to watch. In terms of the supporting cast, Michael Ajao does a good job as the endearing John, one of Eloise's fellow students, and Terence Stamp's presence as the Silver Haired Gentleman keeps audiences on their toes. The late Diana Rigg is also memorable as Ms. Collins, Eloise's elderly landlady.

Wright's script, co-written with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, operates as a commentary on nostalgia. The story highlights the appeal and danger of looking back on the past, serving as a warning that dreams aren't always what they seem. That thematic through-line is a familiar one, but filtered through Wright's lens works as an engaging hook for this narrative. Wright also has fun playing in the mystery sandbox, doing his best to keep viewers guessing with regards to the film's twists and turns. Last Night in Soho does deal with some serious subject matter, including mental illness and abuse. How much someone enjoys the film may depend on their feelings about how these are portrayed, but Wright and Wilson-Cairns largely handle them with the care and sensitivity they require so they don't detract from the final product.

While Last Night in Soho is arguably unlike anything Wright's made before (it's by far his least comedic movie), it feels very much like a Wright film with its panache, catchy soundtrack, and ensemble cast with no weak spots. With this, Wright demonstrates he has the skill to be a master in any genre, and it will be exciting to see what he decides to do next. Rather than getting pigeon-holed as a strictly comedy director, Wright's gone down a much more fascinating path. As long as one feels safe going to the theater, Last Night in Soho is worth seeing on the big screen for fans of Wright's previous work and cinephiles in general. It may not be the season's biggest release in terms of profile, but Last Night in Soho is one of the fall's best films.

Next: What's Edgar Wright's Next Movie?

Last Night in Soho is playing in U.S. theaters as of October 29, 2021. The film is 116 minutes long and is rated R for bloody violence, sexual content, language, brief drug material and brief graphic nudity.

Key Release Dates

Last night in soho.

Supported by

‘Late Night With the Devil’ Review: Selling Your Soul for the Ratings

An occult-obsessed nation is nimbly captured in this found-footage horror film about a late night show gone horribly wrong.

Share full article

A man in a light suit stands in front of a pinwheel, appearing to yell.

By Alissa Wilkinson

“Late Night With the Devil” is trimly effective horror of a rare sort: I found myself wishing, halfway through my screening, that I was watching it on my TV. Not because it doesn’t work in a theater — horror almost always benefits from being seen in a crowd — but because its writer-director duo, the brothers Colin and Cameron Cairnes, make shrewd use of some of the uniquely creepy things about television, especially its intimacy. The TV set is in your house, and you’re sitting six feet away from it, and especially in the wee hours of the night, whatever’s staring back at you can feel eerie, or impertinent. Over time, the late night TV host becomes your best friend, or a figure that haunts your fitful dreams.

That’s why people watch late night TV, of course: to laugh, to be entertained and to feel some kind of companionship when the rest of the world goes to bed. “Late Night With the Devil” twists that camaraderie around on itself, layering in familiar 1970s horror tropes about demonic possession, Satanism and the occult. The result is a nasty and delicious, unapologetic pastiche with a flair for menace. I had a blast.

The host of the movie’s invented late night talk and variety show is Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), a younger, snappier Johnny Carson who is desperate to climb to the top of the ratings. Framed as found footage wrapped in a pseudo-documentary, the film briefly fills us in on Delroy’s career trajectory hosting “Night Owls With Jack Delroy,” a show that can’t quite overtake its competitors. As narration informs us that Delroy is risking going down in history as an also-ran — always Emmy nominated, never the winner — we learn that we’re about to watch the night that “shocked a nation.”

On Halloween night, 1977, the first in the crucial sweeps week for “Night Owls,” Delroy and his producers come up with a desperate, last ditch idea to spike ratings: they design a show full of spectacle that will tap into the cultural craze for all things occult. The guest list that night includes a medium and a skeptic, plus a parapsychologist and the girl she’s been treating for demonic possession. The master tapes have been found, the narrator informs us, and that’s what we’re about to see. Buckle up.

All of these characters seem familiar. Carmichael the Conjurer (Ian Bliss), the film’s abrasive skeptic, seems based on James Randi , who appeared on “The Tonight Show” to debunk others’ claims to paranormal abilities, most notably the illusionist Uri Geller in 1973. Randi also confronted mediums on live TV (such as this film’s Christou, played by a hammy Fayssal Bazzi) and was an outspoken critic of parapsychology.

“Late Night With the Devil” also evokes “Michelle Remembers,” the now-discredited 1980 best seller by the psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder about his patient, Michelle Smith, who claimed to have been subjected to ritual satanic abuse. Here the doctor is a parapsychologist played by Laura Gordon, whose performance combines vulnerability and conviction in a fruitful counterbalance to some of the camp. She’s accompanied by her charge, Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), whose oscillation from dead-eyed to vibrant is devilishly disquieting. (If there’s one rule in horror, it’s that there’s nothing creepier than a little girl.)

The film moves a little slowly, unfolding at the speed of the “Night Owls” episode. That’s good. We’re forced to watch it all in real time, just as the audience at home would have, which more or less transforms us into those people in 1977, sitting on the couch in the middle of the night, by turns titillated, captivated and horrified by what’s unfolding on live television. Eventually they — we — are sucked into the whole illusion, an effect I can only imagine is enhanced if you’re watching it all unfold on your actual TV set. You aren’t watching a movie anymore; for a few minutes, you’re part of it.

All of this would have been completely seamless, but for one disappointing formal choice. We’re told the master tape we’re about to watch will be accompanied by previously unseen backstage footage shot during commercial breaks. Though it might have been interesting to leave those scenes out, it makes sense that they’re there — it keeps the film from getting too abstract by filling us in on what’s actually happening between segments.

However, the “footage” is shot in a more traditional shot/reverse shot format, like any film might be, which is weirdly inconsistent with the idea that some rogue cameraman was just hanging out backstage, accidentally capturing footage. Instead it feels scripted, like there were filmmakers present to document the unfolding panic. A more hand-held, one-camera approach might have helped to maintain the movie’s illusion — and made everything far more effectively creepy. (I have a similar quibble with a sequence near the film’s ending, though that feels more subject to the suspension of disbelief.)

But this is relatively minor, in the scheme of things. “Late Night With the Devil” reflects something that movies have often explored — the strangely queasy codependent nature of the live TV host and the audience — through an old trope, which suggests that while you might ask God to save your soul, only the devil will give you what your vanity requires. Invert that, refract it and drag it through sludgy, bloody mud, and you get “Late Night With the Devil”: diabolically good fun.

Late Night With the Devil Rated R: Demons, death and disgusting destruction. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters.

Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

“X-Men ’97,” a revival on Disney+ that picks up where the ’90s animated series left off, has faced questions after the firing of its showrunner ahead of the premiere.

“3 Body Problem,” a science fiction epic from the creators of “Game of Thrones,” has arrived on Netflix. We spoke with them about their latest project .

For the past two decades, female presidential candidates on TV have been made in Hillary Clinton’s image. With “The Girls on the Bus,” that’s beginning to change .

“Freaknik,” a new Hulu documentary, delves into the rowdy ’80s and ’90s-era spring festival that drew hundreds of thousands of Black college students to Atlanta.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

The independent newspaper of the University of Iowa community since 1868

The Daily Iowan

Review | ‘Late Night with the Devil’ is a modern horror classic

The concept of selling one’s soul for the ratings is nothing new, but Cameron and Colin Cairnes’s “Late Night with the Devil” takes this idea to extraordinary and lethal new heights.

The film follows Jack Delroy, a 1970s talk show host akin to Johnny Carson, witnessing his show’s ratings deteriorate. In a last-ditch effort to finally make a name for himself, he puts together an unorthodox Halloween special that, perhaps expectedly, goes horribly wrong.

This is a classic horror premise if I’ve ever seen one, and “Late Night with the Devil” seems poised to become a future horror classic itself. There is, unfortunately, a small blemish in its reputation that must be addressed.

During certain brief moments throughout the film, a transition card with the fictional talk show’s logo is featured, and the graphic displayed above is an image generated by artificial intelligence. I believe this was unnecessary: A human artist could easily have been brought in to render this transition.

Otherwise, this is a film that demands the attention of horror fans. Non-fans of the genre likely won’t be converted, but aficionados will find plenty to appreciate.

The film employs the found footage style of horror filmmaking that was popularized by 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project,” and this choice worked wonders. Everything felt organic, as though you were watching events unfold in real-time. There was a moment at the end where I let out an audible gasp, and I don’t remember the last time I had a theater experience like that.

Unfortunately, found footage horror films can sometimes suffer from having sporadic and uneven pacing; a pitfall this film does not avoid. However, apart from the aforementioned AI usage, a poor pace was the only significant problem I found.

Actor David Dastmalchian’s portrayal of Jack Delroy was gripping. He sells this character by playing up his cocky, talk show host attitude, and it felt like a person you might really have met in 1977.

Because of the cramped setting and story, it would have been easy for the film to fall into tedium, but I found myself gripped for the entire 93 minutes. The supporting characters help with this too; they all have their own mannerisms and conflicting ideals, which keep tension high.

This is the kind of film that should have been released around Halloween. I don’t see the logic behind a March release, but I’m not complaining if it means this film is out in the world sooner.

If you’re a horror fan and can look past its questionable AI usage, “Late Night with the Devil” is worth your time. The film offers unrelenting spookiness for 93 minutes straight, and I had a blast.

“Late Night with the Devil” is now playing in theaters.

Alyx Rush performs during The Daily Iowan Headliners in The Daily Iowan newsroom in the Adler Journalism building on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Four groups will be featured in the series’ second season. (Emily Nyberg/The Daily Iowan)

(he/him/his)

Newsletters
Print Subscription
Reprints and Permissions
Publishing Guidelines
Editorial Policy
Job Descriptions
Scholarship Opportunities
Advertising Info / Rate Card
Today’s Classified Ads
The Daily Iowan archives (1868-present)

International edition
Australia edition
Europe edition

‘I’ve never seen war shown like this’: film-maker captures Ukraine conflict from soldiers’ view

Jamie Roberts says his BBC Two documentary, Ukraine, Enemy in the Woods, aims to show a true picture of the frontline

F or all the coverage of war in Ukraine , it is rare to see it from the point of view of soldiers on the front. But by asking Ukrainians to wear cameras on their helmets as they face down relentless Russian attacks, Jamie Roberts’s BBC Two documentary has captured the bloody reality of a conflict increasingly forgotten in the west.

The director says the intimate and harrowing film, Ukraine, Enemy in the Woods, was conceived as a response to war fatigue. But, if anything, the grim and often unheroic struggle in the frozen forest north-west of Kupyansk emphasises the sheer level of human loss that Ukraine is suffering in defence of its homeland.

Roberts spent seven weeks with the Berlingo company in November and December last year to make the film, which will be broadcast on Monday night. During that time the 99-strong force lost 10 people, with another 66 wounded so seriously they could no longer fight – a casualty rate of 76%.

“You can go online and see reams of graphic violence on social media like Telegram, but it all has zero context. Our aim was to show a true picture of what is happening, showing the humanity, the relationships of the soldiers. I have never seen war shown like this; when you see it on the news, it often seems under control,” Roberts said.

It took several weeks for Roberts to find the Berlingo company. Although several Ukrainian units were willing to work with the BBC film-maker, by the time he got out to meet them in the field “often they had been decimated, wrecked” by having taken too many casualties. Large units were often reduced to 15% of full strength.

An unforgettable sequence towards the end of the documentary is taken from the point of view of Vovan, a company commander, his shortened breathing a constant accompaniment to the battle scenes that follow. The film has no narration, so the action and accompanying interviews bear the weight of the story.

Contact with the next foxhole has been lost – a lot of the time, Roberts said, the soldiers are simply trying to find out what is happening. Vovan heads out looking for his buddies, call signs Fury and Adidas. First he finds several dead Russians, evidence of a firefight, then a nervy search of the foxhole reveals his dead comrades.

Vovan helps in putting their bodies on to stretchers, but there is further gunfire and evidence, presumably from a drone, that there is at least one living Russian soldier nearby. The Ukrainian stalks towards a depression in the ground, where there is some movement ahead, and he twice unloads his clip, killing him.

It is a carefully edited scene, not gory despite what is depicted, and it captures the reality of the combat: isolated, fragmentary and grim. Roberts justifies showing it, arguing “we martialled it carefully. This is not graphic violence for graphic violence’s sake. This is not a war of stalemate; huge numbers of people are being killed daily”.

Vovan reflects on the episode in the documentary and hints these encounters will remain with him a long time: “We killed a lot of people. [But] it was all negative because we lost our brothers in arms. It was very, how can I put it, very nerve-shredding. My head was full of everything and I needed to unload it.”

An obvious conclusion to draw is that fighting in the remote landscape is pointless. But despite the casualties they are taking, the Ukrainians filmed talk of the necessity of holding back the Russians, their hopes for a democratic future, and in the words of a combat medic, Natalia, the only woman filmed, of finding a home after the war to renovate and to “adopt more dogs, lots of dogs”.

The documentary makes clear that the Russian invaders are taking far greater numbers of casualties in the battle for the forest, “between three and 10 to one”, Roberts estimated. Often they are poorly trained, unwisely massing in large groups, but while a couple are shown captured, very few surrender.

Even so, for the Ukrainian defenders there is very little respite, and their supplies of weaponry are increasingly short, in a conflict that appears without end. This is not a film that could or would have been made in the first 18 months of the war, Roberts says. Having spent seven weeks working daily a few miles from the frontline, he now believes President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s recent statement that 31,000 Ukrainians had been killed in the war is almost certainly an underestimate.

More on this story

Russia demands extradition of Ukraine security chief and others for ‘terrorism’

Russia-Ukraine war: ‘Our spirit does not give up,’ Zelenskiy says in Easter message; Russia hits Ukraine’s energy infrastructure – as it happened

At least two people killed in Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy network

Europe must get ready for looming war, Donald Tusk warns

Ukraine war briefing: Russian fighter jet crashes off Crimea

Russia criticised for using veto to end UN monitoring of North Korea sanctions

Ukraine pleads for air defence aid after Russia launches more missile strikes on Kyiv

Amid air raids and electricity shortages, a Ukrainian artist paints the Russian invasion

Ukraine's qualification for Euro 2024 'for our supporters, for our country, for our people' – video

IMAGES

'Last Night in Soho' Review: What A Carve Up!
Last Night in Soho review: 'A bone-close exploration of female trauma
Last Night in Soho movie review (2021)
Official Trailer and Production Stills for “LAST NIGHT IN SOHO” from
Movie Review: Last Night in Soho, starring Anya Taylor-Joy
‘Last Night in Soho’ First Trailer: Edgar Wright, Anya Taylor-Joy

VIDEO

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO Trailer (2021)
Last Night in Soho: Midnight Whispers of Mystery |The last night in Soho movie review| Trailer
Last Night in Soho Trailer REACTION
Last Night in Soho Review
Last Night in Soho
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO Trailer 2 (2021)

COMMENTS

Last Night in Soho movie review (2021)
Wright's "Last Night in Soho" features a killer soundtrack and chic retro fashion by costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux, yet crumbles into a disappointing mound of boredom. This review was filed on September 11, 2021 from the North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film opens on October 29, 2021.
Last Night in Soho
Nov 05, 2021. Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho is the writer/director's first work of genuine horror and it's in many ways unlike his previous movies, both in good ways and not as good. We follow ...
'Last Night in Soho' Review: Dream Girls
The editing is dizzying, the music divine as Wright reaches across time to show what the big city can do to a young woman's dreams. This gives the movie an undercurrent of wistfulness that feels ...
Last Night in Soho review
Edgar Wright, director of Last Night in Soho, which had its premiere at the Venice film festival. Photograph: Kate Green/Getty Images for BFI. As Eloise bounds back-and-forth between the decades ...
Last Night in Soho review
The line "London can be a lot" recurs throughout the script, co-written by Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Oscar nominated for 1917), and the same could be said of the film.Some viewers may find ...
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Last Night in Soho: Directed by Edgar Wright. With Thomasin McKenzie, Aimee Cassettari, Rita Tushingham, Colin Mace. Aspiring fashion designer Eloise is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s, where she encounters dazzling wannabe singer Sandie. But the glamour is not as it seems, and the dreams of the past crack and splinter into something darker.
Last Night in Soho review: Edgar Wright's retro thriller dazzles with
Last Night in Soho (in theaters Friday) does that with Petula Clark's "Downtown," turning her winsome 1965 single into a dreamy, spectral a cappella dirge. Except this one actually earns it: That ...
Last Night in Soho
Last Night in Soho is a visually stunning letdown. Full Review | Jul 25, 2023. Ryan Oquiza Rappler. Anya Taylor-Joy stars in this horror mystery that's heavy on neon lights and eye-popping visuals ...
Last Night In Soho
Last Night In Soho First Reviews: Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy Dazzle in Edgar Wright's "Hypnotic" Horror Hybrid Critics at the Venice Film Festival say this "genuinely scary" ode to 1960s London and Hammer horror carries all the director's trademarks - cue the awesome needle drops - and provides the late Diana Rigg with a fitting swan song.
Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy in Edgar Wright's 'Last Night in
Last Night in Soho is an immensely pleasurable film that delights in playing with genre, morphing from time-travel fantasy to dark fairy tale, from mystery to nightmarish horror in a climax that ...
Movie Review: Last Night in Soho, starring Anya Taylor-Joy
Movie Review: In Edgar Wright's horror film Last Night in Soho, a shy fashion student (Thomasin McKenzie) finds herself in an alternate 1965 reality in which she's a beautiful young singer ...
Last Night in Soho review
Last Night in Soho is a doppelganger horror-thriller about a wide-eyed fashion student called Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) who has brought her mum's old Dansette record player and Cilla Black and ...
'Last Night in Soho' Review: Edgar Wright's Disappointing Horror Film
Otherwise, "Last Night in Soho" is a surprising misfire, all the more disappointing for being made with such palpable care and conviction. Wright's particular affections for B-movies ...
"Last Night in Soho," Reviewed: A Flashy but Facile Anti-Nostalgia Trip
November 1, 2021. In "Last Night in Soho," Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) witnesses in her nightly dreams the increasingly troubled world of a pop singer named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy). Photograph ...
Last Night in Soho Review
Another almost-musical from Edgar Wright. Last Night in Soho will debut in theaters on Oct. 29. Last Night in Soho is the horror equivalent of an up-tempo cover song: it's a fun romp with some ...
Last Night In Soho Review
Release Date: 28 Oct 2021. Original Title: Last Night In Soho. Edgar Wright is a master of turning an ordinary setting into something unexpected. An average London pub becomes a fort during a ...
Last Night in Soho
An innocent is stabbed in the stomach with a butcher knife. A drunken man in a club is punched in the face. A woman is held at bay by a knife held to her throat. Someone smashes into a mirror, and Ellie is left to pick up the broken shards of bloody glass. A woman slashes a man's face with her fingernails.
'Last Night in Soho' Film Review: Edgar Wright Salutes the Sleazy
Mixing glorious pastiche and gory ghost story, director Edgar Wright's "Last Night in Soho" will stand as one of the best London movies of the new decade. That's probably because, while it ...
Last Night in Soho
Last Night in Soho is a 2021 British psychological horror film directed by Edgar Wright and co-written by Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns.It stars Thomasin McKenzie as a naive teenager who moves to London to study fashion design; there she is haunted by visions of Sandie (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), a glamorous young woman who had lived during the Swinging Sixties.
Last Night in Soho Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 6 ): Kids say ( 18 ): Edgar Wright has a very distinctive style and this time traveling coming-of-age mystery drama is straight out of his back catalog. Last Night in Soho is a movie that most certainly looks the part, with Wright having shot modern day London in a striking way, while the flashbacks to the city's ...
Last Night in Soho
Chris Stuckmann reviews Last Night In Soho, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Thomasin McKenzie, Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao...
Last Night in Soho
There is an irony here. The cerebral cortex of the British film industry is located in the heart of Soho, a closely-knit village teeming with back alleys, picturesque squares, Chinese restaurants, exclusive clubs, strip joints, celebrity stomping grounds, gay bars, student bedsits, exotic boutiques, basement cinemas, sex shops, historical curios and more subterranean sleaze than you can shake ...
Last Night In Soho Review: Wright's Least Comedic Movie Is Still Thrilling
By Chris Agar. Published Oct 29, 2021. Last Night in Soho is a stylish and thrilling work from Wright, bolstered by an impressive lead performance from Thomasin McKenzie. Director Edgar Wright is perhaps best known as a comedic filmmaker, with his Cornetto trilogy earning him a passionate following earlier in his career.
'Late Night With the Devil' Review: Selling Your Soul for the Ratings
Invert that, refract it and drag it through sludgy, bloody mud, and you get "Late Night With the Devil": diabolically good fun. Late Night With the Devil. Rated R: Demons, death and disgusting ...
Review
The concept of selling one's soul for the ratings is nothing new, but Cameron and Colin Cairnes's "Late Night with the Devil" takes this idea to extraordinary and lethal new heights. The film follows Jack Delroy, a 1970s talk show host akin to Johnny Carson, witnessing his show's ratings deteriorate. In a last-ditch effort to...
𝐑𝐈𝐂
filmsric on March 31, 2024: "⌗ LAST NIGHT IN SOHO ──── REVIEW recently, i reached out to my followers for movie suggestions, and 'Last Night in Soho' ..."
'I've never seen war shown like this': film-maker captures Ukraine
Mon 25 Mar 2024 02.00 EDT Last modified on Tue ... November and December last year to make the film, which will be broadcast on Monday night. During that time the 99-strong force lost 10 people ...

Movie Reviews

Robert Daniels

Now playing

Nandini Balial

Peyton Robinson

Simon Abrams

About Dry Grasses

We Were the Lucky Ones

Last Night in Soho (2021)

Writer (story by)

Cinematographer

Latest blog posts

Steve Martin Is an Auteur Without Having Directed a Thing

The Unloved, Part 124: Play Dirty

Beyoncé and My Daughter Love Country Music

A Poet of an Actor: Louis Gossett, Jr. (1936-2024)

Last Night in Soho

More like this

Did you know

User reviews 1.1K

Technical specs

Related news

More to explore

Recently viewed

Last Night in Soho review: Edgar Wright's retro thriller dazzles with '60s style, falls short on plot

Related Articles

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Movies / TV

Last Night in Soho Reviews

Last Night In Soho First Reviews: Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy Dazzle in Edgar Wright’s “Hypnotic" Horror Hybrid

Is Last Night in Soho as entertaining as it looks?

What kind of movie can we expect?

Does it work as a horror movie?

Will Edgar Wright fans enjoy it?

Is it mostly for fans of London – particularly in the 1960s?

Who else is the movie for?

Will we love the soundtrack?

How does Last Night in Soho look?

Does the movie feature strong female characters?

How is Thomasin McKenzie’s performance?

What about Anya Taylor-Joy?

Is this also a proper posthumous showcase for Dame Diana Rigg?

Are there any other performances that stand out?

How well does Wright balance the movie’s dual narratives?

What’s the best thing about Last Night in Soho ?

Does the movie ultimately stick the landing?

Related News

Movie & TV News

Top Headlines

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

site categories

David Rooney

Related Stories

Full credits

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Last Night in Soho Is a Mostly Intoxicating Affair

More Movie Reviews

Most Viewed Stories

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

Sign In To Continue Reading

‘Last Night in Soho’ Review: Edgar Wright’s Retro Horror Has Its Heart in the Sixties and Its Head All Over the Place

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition), Sept. 4, 2021. (Also in Toronto Film Festival.) Running time: 117 MIN.

More From Our Brands

“Last Night in Soho,” Reviewed: A Flashy but Facile Anti-Nostalgia Trip

New Yorker Favorites

Last Night in Soho Review

What's your favorite Edgar Wright movie?

New Fall Movies 2021: 40 Films to Look Forward To

Best Reviewed Movies of 2021

In This Article

More Reviews by Siddhant Adlakha

Last Night In Soho Review

Related Articles

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

Last Night in Soho

Content Caution