Last Night in Soho

Director Edgar Wright has had good run of films when starting with Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim which all made great use of his fast-paced and quick witted style that makes for a fun experience every time. He then took things further in the drama department, while keeping it all entertaining, with Baby Driver which was another fine success and made me thankful that Wright didn't sell himself away to Marvel with Ant-Man back in 2015. Where to next? Soho, please. 

Last Night in Soho released in 2021 following delays with the pandemic and some additional reshoots, and stars Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Terrence Stamp and the late Diana Rigg. The story follows KcKenzie's young art student who carries an idolised vision of 1960s London and moves to the city to start her degree but while staying in a creaky old apartment, she soon finds herself transported back in time and discovers, through the eyes of another girl, it wasn't everything she had hoped for. 

The first images released for this made it out to be a noiry romantic drama with Taylor-Joy and Smith sharing a neon-lit phonebooth but the final product is a supernatural thriller which sounds like a good move for Wright. His approach to filmmaking and creative use of visuals should work well here and, for a time, he shows moments of promise but the end result is unfortunately rather unbalanced and very clunky by the end. This isn't aided by a near two hour running time which takes a while to gain momentum, a couple of lacklustre twists that even I saw coming and just overall not delivering on the premise it set itself out for. 

Not wanting too critical, we still do see moments of Wright's flare for directing in a couple of dazzling sequences midway through and when the thriller aspects arrive, they are a lot of fun but it just doesn't come together despite a great cast who all play their parts very well. It is also great to see Diana Rigg here in her final performance who, alongside Stamp, give the film some gravitas but the overall story needed a few more drafts to make for a memorable experience. As it stands, I feel this needed some tighter editing to hit the 90 minute mark to make it something I could recommend, which feels like blasphemy when editing is rarely a problem for Wright.