Review originally posted on 09.11.21 at the Toronto International Film Festival
If “Baby Driver,” Edgar Wright’s kinetic, bullet-riddled live-action jukebox stunt, saw the director riffing on the cinema of Walter Hill and Michael Mann in his own inimitable key, then “Last Night in Soho” has the British director tipping his proverbial cap to Dario Argento and the Giallo genre.
Thomasin McKenzie plays an aspiring fashion designer who, through her dreams, mysteriously enters swinging 60’s London where she encounters aspiring singer Sandy (Anya Taylor-joy), but all is not as it appears. As she pursues fashion design at a prestigious Fashion school, identities start to morph, characters in her dreams start appear everywhere she goes. To reveal more would be a disservice to the twist-filled plot.
It’s all slickly directed by Wright, with a colourfully exuberant visual style. ‘Soho’ has a strong first hour of pure pleasure. An amazing swinging ‘60s soundtrack. You live and breathe the setting. But then it devolves into infantilism. He can be such a gifted visualist but can’t seem to let go of his obsession for more, more, MORE
The mix of genres doesn’t always mesh, the hypnotic coherence of the first hour replaced by incoherence and overexposed twists in the latter half; The supernatural elements are quite silly as well, unlike Argento or Roeg, Wright never really elevates the genre tropes here beyond silly homage. [B-]