Sep 2022 *
I saw this. I was waffling for awhile on whether to give it a shot. On the one hand, it looked like a chick flick. On the other hand, hey, it's Edgar Wright! You can't go wrong with Edgar Wright. On the third hand (yes, I'm an alien, just deal with it) Anya Taylor-Joy looked like quite the babe in some of the trailers and reviews I saw... that was probably what made me decide to watch it, I don't even remember.
Anyway... it definitely has its moments! Possibly the most important thing, that I should say right away, is that I do not think this is Edgar Wright's finest hour. He did a respectable job with it, and it certainly could have been worse, but I personally would not say that it is up to his usual standards. I expect more from Edgar Wright, frankly.
But, having said that... it is not a bad movie. It got me on the side of the protagonist, played by Thomasin McKenzie, very quickly. In fact, I kind of felt bad for her... the Anya Taylor-Joy character is SO glamorous and hot, especially at first. I felt like it was implied that the Thomasin M character was portrayed as becoming more attractive as she began to adapt the style and appearance of the Anya T-J character, and that bummed me out a bit. Thomasin M is cute! I felt like that kind of sucked, that they put her in that position, to have to act in such a way as to convince us that any attractiveness she might have came only from how well she emulated the appearance of Anya T-J's character. In fact, I'm not sure if I felt bad for Thomasin M's character, or Thomasin herself... anyway, whatever.
The idea is that TM's character is from a small, rural town in the UK (in Cornwall). She lives in our current time, but she LIVES internally in the London of the Swinging Sixties. Not necessarily the "swinging" part of that era, wink wink nudge nudge, more just the styles and fashions... she wants to study fashion, and she loves Audrey Hepburn. She seems nice, you root for her, and want her to be happy.
She gets accepted at a school of fashion design... something like that, some place where they design women's clothing. It is in London, so she gets to go live in London! She's all excited about that, so, watching it, we feel like "hey, good for her." But, when she gets there, it is kind of a mixed bag. London is exciting, but her roommate is a total... um... can we say CUNT on Trash Epics? Because, yah... The roommate actually has a little scene that I suspect Edgar Wright stole from Orgazmo, that awesome movie by the South Park guys. The Thomasin M character tells her the name of the rural town in Cornwall that she's from, and the roommate says "I'm sorry." Thomasin assumes the roommate didn't quite hear what she said, or perhaps was unfamiliar with the town, and starts to explain where it is, and the roommate says something like "oh, no, no, yeah, I know where it is, it's just... I mean... I'm sorry." There is a scene exactly like that in Orgazmo, where the main character's girlfriend tells some guy in a video store that she's from Utah, and he just looks so taken aback and unprepared to hear such a wretched reality be referred to, that all he can do is stutter helplessly and say, with great pity and compassion, "I'm sorry."
So, Thomasin... her character's name is Eloise, I'm sorry, I should have started saying that several paragraphs ago, Eloise decides to get her own apartment, so she doesn't have this beeyotch for a roommate. She takes a room in an apartment building run by this mysterious older lady, played by the great Diana Rigg. It's expensive as fuck, but she decides that somehow she'll make it work.... we've all been there, eh?!?
So she rents the room, and gets a job as a barmaid in a local bar, to pay the bills. The landlady asks for a lot of money up front, so she has to start working AND going to school right away, which is asking a lot of anyone... again, many of us have probably been there, or will be at some point. At the end of her days, she drags herself home, exhausted, falls asleep quickly, aaannnnnddddd.... wakes up in London in the Swinging Sixties!
It isn't completely clear at first exactly what is going on. Is she having dreams, or are they some kind of visions, or even astral time travel? It is hard to define. But whatever is going on, she starts to inhabit the body of the Anya T-J character, Sandie, every night, in her dreams. She usually seems to be just a passenger, although at times she seems to be able to assert herself in some ways. Anyway, she is back in the 60s in London, every night, and she wakes up in the mornings back in our time, apparently feeling well-rested, which I personally had a few problems with, but, never mind about that.
Things get complicated when the glamorous, beautiful Sandie's life takes a turn for the worse, and Eloise gets sort of dragged along for the horrors. Her dreams begin to be more like nightmares. She starts to feel a sense of responsibility for poor Sandie, and wants to help her. She tries to think of anything she can do in our time, to make sense of whatever happened back in the 60s, whch she still doesn't really understand, although she thinks she might understand it.
Anyway, I'll wreck it if I say too much more. It has some British actors from the 60s that some of us might enjoy seeing in this, like Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham, and Margaret Nolan. Personally, I needed to look up what all those people were doing back in the 60s, but I know that some people know this stuff without having to look it up.
For me, it was like watching an Austin Powers movie that took a turn into a dark, seedy neighborhood. It had some fun parts, and Anya T-J is indeed a babe. But, again, as I said at the beginning... I expected something more from Edgar Wright. He usually packs so much interesting stuff into every minute of his movies. This movie was adequate, in my view, and it had its moments, and all the actors did a solid job. But still, I just wanted more of something or other, somehow.
So, there you have it, my two cents on Last Night in Soho.
Anyway... it definitely has its moments! Possibly the most important thing, that I should say right away, is that I do not think this is Edgar Wright's finest hour. He did a respectable job with it, and it certainly could have been worse, but I personally would not say that it is up to his usual standards. I expect more from Edgar Wright, frankly.
But, having said that... it is not a bad movie. It got me on the side of the protagonist, played by Thomasin McKenzie, very quickly. In fact, I kind of felt bad for her... the Anya Taylor-Joy character is SO glamorous and hot, especially at first. I felt like it was implied that the Thomasin M character was portrayed as becoming more attractive as she began to adapt the style and appearance of the Anya T-J character, and that bummed me out a bit. Thomasin M is cute! I felt like that kind of sucked, that they put her in that position, to have to act in such a way as to convince us that any attractiveness she might have came only from how well she emulated the appearance of Anya T-J's character. In fact, I'm not sure if I felt bad for Thomasin M's character, or Thomasin herself... anyway, whatever.
The idea is that TM's character is from a small, rural town in the UK (in Cornwall). She lives in our current time, but she LIVES internally in the London of the Swinging Sixties. Not necessarily the "swinging" part of that era, wink wink nudge nudge, more just the styles and fashions... she wants to study fashion, and she loves Audrey Hepburn. She seems nice, you root for her, and want her to be happy.
She gets accepted at a school of fashion design... something like that, some place where they design women's clothing. It is in London, so she gets to go live in London! She's all excited about that, so, watching it, we feel like "hey, good for her." But, when she gets there, it is kind of a mixed bag. London is exciting, but her roommate is a total... um... can we say CUNT on Trash Epics? Because, yah... The roommate actually has a little scene that I suspect Edgar Wright stole from Orgazmo, that awesome movie by the South Park guys. The Thomasin M character tells her the name of the rural town in Cornwall that she's from, and the roommate says "I'm sorry." Thomasin assumes the roommate didn't quite hear what she said, or perhaps was unfamiliar with the town, and starts to explain where it is, and the roommate says something like "oh, no, no, yeah, I know where it is, it's just... I mean... I'm sorry." There is a scene exactly like that in Orgazmo, where the main character's girlfriend tells some guy in a video store that she's from Utah, and he just looks so taken aback and unprepared to hear such a wretched reality be referred to, that all he can do is stutter helplessly and say, with great pity and compassion, "I'm sorry."
So, Thomasin... her character's name is Eloise, I'm sorry, I should have started saying that several paragraphs ago, Eloise decides to get her own apartment, so she doesn't have this beeyotch for a roommate. She takes a room in an apartment building run by this mysterious older lady, played by the great Diana Rigg. It's expensive as fuck, but she decides that somehow she'll make it work.... we've all been there, eh?!?
So she rents the room, and gets a job as a barmaid in a local bar, to pay the bills. The landlady asks for a lot of money up front, so she has to start working AND going to school right away, which is asking a lot of anyone... again, many of us have probably been there, or will be at some point. At the end of her days, she drags herself home, exhausted, falls asleep quickly, aaannnnnddddd.... wakes up in London in the Swinging Sixties!
It isn't completely clear at first exactly what is going on. Is she having dreams, or are they some kind of visions, or even astral time travel? It is hard to define. But whatever is going on, she starts to inhabit the body of the Anya T-J character, Sandie, every night, in her dreams. She usually seems to be just a passenger, although at times she seems to be able to assert herself in some ways. Anyway, she is back in the 60s in London, every night, and she wakes up in the mornings back in our time, apparently feeling well-rested, which I personally had a few problems with, but, never mind about that.
Things get complicated when the glamorous, beautiful Sandie's life takes a turn for the worse, and Eloise gets sort of dragged along for the horrors. Her dreams begin to be more like nightmares. She starts to feel a sense of responsibility for poor Sandie, and wants to help her. She tries to think of anything she can do in our time, to make sense of whatever happened back in the 60s, whch she still doesn't really understand, although she thinks she might understand it.
Anyway, I'll wreck it if I say too much more. It has some British actors from the 60s that some of us might enjoy seeing in this, like Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham, and Margaret Nolan. Personally, I needed to look up what all those people were doing back in the 60s, but I know that some people know this stuff without having to look it up.
For me, it was like watching an Austin Powers movie that took a turn into a dark, seedy neighborhood. It had some fun parts, and Anya T-J is indeed a babe. But, again, as I said at the beginning... I expected something more from Edgar Wright. He usually packs so much interesting stuff into every minute of his movies. This movie was adequate, in my view, and it had its moments, and all the actors did a solid job. But still, I just wanted more of something or other, somehow.
So, there you have it, my two cents on Last Night in Soho.
