Edgar Wright has proven to be quite the talent. He has a knack for music and editing, able to create well-timed comedies like the various works of the Cornetto Trilogy that could each almost work as an example of the sort of movie each is parodying. Baby Driver was basically a musical without any singing. And there is a part of me that will always wonder what his Ant-Man would have looked like. The point being, his timing and stylishness suggests he could have it in him to direct a good horror movie, something that would seem to be well outside his standard wheelhouse, but at the same time, even his weakest movies are usually well-crafted and entertaining.
His horror movie, something in the general vein of the psychological horror of Rosemary’s Baby, is out now with the ominous title of Last Night in Soho.
Ellie Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) is a girl from a small Cornish village with some good news: she has just been accepted into the prestigious London College of Fashion. She’s a designer raised by her grandmother (Rita Tushingham), and she loves the 60s in both style and music. She also has some sort of psychic gift and often sees her dead mother’s ghost nearby. Ellie’s mother died when Ellie was young, and London had overwhelmed the poor woman in some somewhat unexplained way. However, for all that Ellie is looking forward to the big city, it turns out that London isn’t what she hoped it would be. Men are often leering at her, her new roommate is a classic “mean girl” type, and she can’t seem to relax, so she rents a room off-campus from one Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg in her final film role). But when she goes to sleep, Ellie finds herself somehow seeing the neighborhood in the 60s. She finds herself following the glamorous Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy) as she applies for a job as a lounge singer at a fabulous nightclub. Sandie catches the eye of a manager named Jack (Matt Smith), and while Ellie initially loves her time asleep and seeing the past, that changes as Jack’s true intentions becomes clear and Sandie will not be living out her dreams. And then Ellie’s visions seem to start appearing to her even when she’s wide awake…
There’s a lot to like about this movie. Most of the performances are top notch. Taylor-Joy has more or less perfected the arch look of a young woman who would always stand out in a crowd. McKenzie brims with the youthful innocence as the small town girl type that the movie asks for. Smith is incredibly sleazy in this one, and considering I just this past weekend finished his Doctor Who run, his Jack is about as far from the childlike Time Lord as it is possible to get. Rigg and Terence Stamp both bring their usual gravitas to their respective roles. I can’t complain too much about the main cast.
Likewise, Wright’s strengths as a director are on full display. His view of the 60s is by turns swinging and horrifying as needed. The soundtrack is full of gems, including a couple sung well by Taylor-Joy. There’s a style here that I have come to associate with Wright’s work.
Sadly, the script is a bit of a mess. Ellie’s love interest is a little too quick to believe her at all times. The ghosts that appear more and more as the film goes on are less scary than predictable. Ellie’s classmates are mostly stereotypes of mean girls that doesn’t seem to really fit into that sort of setting. High school, or the British equivalent? Sure. College fashion school? Maybe not. I could buy the mean girls as competitors or snobs, but this was laying it on a bit too thick. And the last act is something of a mess. It’s an ambitious and glorious mess, but it’s still a mess. I wouldn’t have thought that Antlers would be the better horror movie I saw this weekend at the theater, but as much as I enjoyed most of this movie, I can’t say this was all that good a movie when all is said and done. It’s an interesting curio of a film in many ways, but I was hoping for something so much better.
Grade: C+
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