#NewsBytesRecommends: 'Last Night in Soho'—electric thriller fueled by spirited performances
Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho (2021), starring Anna Taylor-Joy (The Queen's Gambit), Matt Smith (The Crown), and Thomasin McKenzie (Old), is an electric film painted in bright, rich, neon colors and tells a tale of a woman's life ripped apart at the seams by incessant exploitation in the prostitution industry. The psychosexual thriller—streaming on Netflix—is engrossing, distinctive, and ripe with multiple metaphors.
Movie follows lives of 2 women
The film follows the life of an aspiring country girl Eloise/Ellie, who travels to the elitist, urban parts of London looking for a career breakthrough and studying fashion. However, she finds her dream life turned on its head when she starts having horrific hallucinatory visions of Sandie—a talented singer and dancer who was pushed into prostitution by a pimp, Jack, back in the 1960s.
Can nostalgia both delight and destroy you?
LNIS completely hinges upon the power and the menacing, perilous side of nostalgia. It's never a wise idea to completely surrender yourself to the ghosts of the past and willingly become their slave for eternity, which is what Ellie does. She is in a battle with herself constantly; she seeks to move ahead in life but also reminiscences about an age that once was.
Production design helps 'LNIS' deliver tale effectively
LNIS welcomes you into its world (though it can be unsettling for some viewers) through its cinematography and production design. On many occasions in the first half, I felt I really was in London! The usage of subdued colors such as red and blue is critical in the horror scenes—it represents fear, darkness, death, danger, and everything that Ellie wants to escape from.
There are multiple themes at work here at once
LNIS also appealed to me because of its treatment of the subject matter. While it is by no means perfect, it still manages to pack in several elements: hallucinatory visions, female rage, revenge, solidarity, and the deep, dark recesses of the sex industry. It also leverages its ghosts by not just reducing them to mere zombies but instead giving them some (although debatable) purpose.
One can't get enough of lead cast
The film stands mightily tall due to the spirited, surefooted performances of the aforementioned actors, who pump life into their characters, lending them the exact amount of fear, lecherousness, shrewdness, desire, and heroism they demand. Smith plays his part so well that you know that there's more to him than what he lets on; Taylor-Joy glistens in scenes when she senses danger lurking nearby.
'LNIS' is streaming on Netflix
When Ellie caves into her hallucination and meets Sandie in London in the 1960s, she sometimes looks at her from a distance, and other times, she somehow merges into her—the two become one body, two souls. The film captures their intense struggle, rage, and internal battles both simultaneously and separately—despite being separated by decades, the war raging inside them somehow finds common ground.
