Last night in Soho – review [Wenecja 2021]

Photo. press material

Edgar Wright He is one of those directors who loves to mix and enjoy genres. Rotate them in different directions, to create original stories. It has already been shown in Baby Driverze, a Last night in Soho He only categorically confirms it. The difference this time around is that we don’t get action movies, but we do get a blurred beginning story of a young girl dreaming of becoming a fashion designer in London. Eloise (Thomasine Mackenzie) has all the preparations to do so. She is fond of and draws inspiration from the culture of the 60s. You can see that she has talent, and she just needs someone to guide her properly. This person is supposed to be a lecturer at a university in London. So the girl leaves her hometown and moves to the big city. Who does not like her grandmother whose daughter destroyed this city. She couldn’t handle his crazy pace and nightlife. There is concern that Eloise will be similar. She, like her mother, suffers from mental problems and sometimes sees things that are no longer there.

At first, the girl moves to a dorm, where she is overwhelmed by student life, more specifically with constant parties and a roommate that she thinks is irrelevant. Therefore, he quickly looks for his own apartment and finds it in the picturesque area of ​​Soho. Mrs. Collins’ Attic Room (Last Big Floor Diane RegAt first it seems like a dream come true. There the girl finds “The Door” to the 1960s, observing the beautiful life of Sandy from the viewer’s perspective (Anya Taylor Joy), a singer searching for her ticket to fame in London clubs. Unfortunately, he puts his fate in the hands of a man (Matt Smith) who just wants to use it.

Last night in Soho His novel constantly leaps between the present and the 1960s, but he does so with such grace that the viewer eagerly awaits the next leap. Especially since the seemingly delightful romantic story in some places begins to turn into a dark drama, and then into a thriller. Wright does not take prisoners. Minute to minute, you begin to speed up the pace, attracting more and more reps. I’m convinced Thomasin Mackenzie had to recover after some scenes, because the director often kept her in a frenzy, which can be seen in her eyes during close-up camera shots. A young actress who really amazed me with her creativity jojo rabbitNow she is raising the bar, proving that she has tremendous talent and that she has yet to show all her abilities. He is similar to Anya Taylor-Joy, who is featured in the role of Sandy. She charms the viewer with her innocence, and then painfully tears it apart before our eyes. We feel that she is suffering physically, so, just like Eloise who is passively watching everything, we can’t do anything we like. The director admitted, during his meeting with journalists, that this was the intention while writing this text, which he wrote with him Kristi Wilson Cairns. He wanted the seemingly cliched story about women being treated as objects in London’s smoky clubs in the 1960s to hurt them, and thus give food for thought.

As it happens with Wright, he is a separate protagonist of the film, but the music, or more precisely, the carefully selected soundtrack consists of the popular songs of the time, including downtown Petoli Clark. Anyway, Taylor Joy’s performance of the a cappella song is great and was added to the movie at the last minute. It was not in the text before. At first, Sandy was supposed to be just a beautiful dancer, but the co-writer decided that she would be too vulgar and that the heroine’s talent should be enriched with something less common.

A great step in casting was to portray Matt Smith as the villain. You can see that such a break in the picture has appealed to the actor, who is taking full advantage of his opportunity to effectively undo the next doctor’s designation. I am also happy to be back in very good condition Terencea StampaWho hasn’t been getting a lot of interesting roles to play lately.

The visual aspect of the film also deserves recognition, simply because it hypnotizes the viewer. Two worlds, and thus the two heroines, were combined by reflections in mirrors, very well. You can see that Wright worked on it for a long time, not to force it, but it is very natural and amazing. In addition, the story he invented with Wilson Kearns, despite the fact that it tells about a bygone era, is still relevant. Treating people as an object, not just women as in this case, is something that remains the same all over the world.

Last night in Soho It is one of the best films I have seen at this year’s Venice Film Festival. It shows that Edgar Wright does not stop developing as a creator, but constantly tries and finds new ways to surprise his viewers. That is why I respect him more and more.