Dreams and nightmares
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO Cert
18 ★★★
Ajourney into the heart of London with a sleazy cabbie sets the tone for the latest genre-hopper from Brit director Edgar Wright.
Shy Cornish teenager Eloise Turner (Thomasin Mckenzie) is being driven through the West End to take up a place studying clothes design at a prestigious fashion school.
For her, the city represents glamorous dreams of the
Swinging Sixties inherited from the mother who took her life when Eloise was a child. But, while she stares at the bright lights of the city, her driver is leering at her legs and making dodgy jokes about stalking.
Seductive but dangerous, this is the London that Wright will explore over the next couple of hours.
During a brief detour into mean girls comedy, Eloise quits her hall of residence for the attic room of Diana Rigg’s boarding house.
But, when she turns off her bedside light, Eloise is transported back in time to her favourite decade where she takes the form of Soho club singer Sandie (Anya Taylor-joy).
Is Wright fashioning a
Goodnight Sweetheart-style time-travelling comedy or a horror film about ghostly apparitions?
Gorgeous cinematography, seamless digital effects and a cleverly curated soundtrack of old hits makes the West End of the 60s feel tangibly real.
Her visions give Eloise a new confidence and she wows her tutor with designs for retro frocks.
But her nostalgia trips take a sinister turn when Sandie gets too close to Matt Smith’s seedy admirer and Eloise meets Terence Stamp’s elderly lothario.
Sadly, Wright can’t craft enough scares or surprises as the film starts moving to the beats of a horror movie. This engaging project is beautifully designed but its twists are too clearly signposted and its characters too thinly drawn.
When she turns off her bedside light Eloise is transported to the 1960s