Introduction
Edgar Wright is an English director who shot to mainstream fame with his apocalyptic zombie comedy, The Cornetto Trilogy. It was praised for its slick and kinetic style that ingeniously blended multiple genres to deliver an electrifying satire. However, Wright’s latest attempts to make movies with more international appeal have proven to be lackluster. While Baby Driver retains some style despite being overly formulaic, his latest release is simply two hours’ worth of ineffective subversion and baffling politics. Last Night In Soho is tone-deaf, jarring maltreatment of sexual abuse issues with racist undertones.
Jarring Genre-Hopping
Firstly, the movie abruptly veers from one genre to another without ever achieving a consistent tone. It starts out as an average bildungsroman, with the young protagonist, Ellie, struggling to fit in at her university in London. There are some hints of her supernatural abilities as she communicates with her dead mother in the mirror. However, the origins of these abilities are never properly explained beyond the grandmother mentioning that Ellie “feels” things strongly. About forty minutes into the movie, she somehow manages to temporarily travel back in time into the body of Sandy, an aspiring young actress fighting to get her big break. The audience is presented with a glitzy, romanticized version of 1960s London with a saturated color scheme and a cornucopia of stylish outfits. In the modern timeline, Ellie attains more confidence by imitating Sandy’s hairstyle and clothes. Abruptly, the movie changes gears and transforms into a horror drama as Sandy is prostituted by her boyfriend and the specters of her clients start haunting Ellie in real life. The latter half of the movie is populated by shots of her screaming and cheap jump-scares from faceless ghosts.
It is vaguely understandable that Wright was attempting to seduce the audience into the same trappings of nostalgia as Ellie to reveal its risks. However, his approach is so superficial that genre-hopping is more annoying than illuminating. It does not seem as if Wright had anything deeper to say than the patently obvious statement that “nostalgia is bad”. Furthermore, the light-hearted tone of the film’s first half leads to an uneven tonality that only serves to undermine the heavy subject matter (Daniels). Ultimately, the shift from coming-of-age to glamorous nostalgia before delving into B-movie horror is clumsy, shallow, and completely unjustified.
Maltreatment of Sexual Abuse
Comical Villain
Wright’s general treatment of sexual abuse is so tone-deaf that it seems as if he only tackled it to score some Social Justice points in mainstream media. Firstly, Jack, Sandy’s boyfriend and eventual pimp is rendered as a stereotypical 1960s pompadoured villain. He is not fleshed out “to be more than a boogeyman,” so there is no correlation between abusers in the movie and reality whatsoever (Daniels). After the initial romance, we do not witness the psychological control Jack must have maintained over Sandy to force her into prostitution. Sex trafficking appears as a far-fetched cinematic plot initiated by some comical monster instead of a real-life issue perpetrated by ordinary human men.
Final Plot Twist
Secondly, the movie’s final plot twist assumes a blame-the-victim mindset that leaves a bad taste in the viewer’s mouth. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Sandy is Ellie’s elderly landlord that lives downstairs. She survived the stabbing and went on to murder countless other men who used her for sex. The ghosts haunting Ellie were actually asking for help, and they dial the police once Sandy attempts to poison Ellie to uncover the truth. Thus, the victim of sex trafficking is an undiscriminating murderer, and her abusers are the real prey that deserves justice. It is a “grossly failed attempt at subversion” that tries to be “clever” by flipping gender roles (Geisinger). Furthermore, as Sandy burns alive, Jack’s ghost appears and reminds her that she had been willing to do anything for fame. Sandy’s murder spree is not even allowed to be the poetic retribution of an exploited woman but becomes an overblown emotional reaction to a fate she had chosen herself. Once again, the movie undermines the real-life problem of women’s sexual exploitation by tactlessly treating it as a cinematic plot tool.
Racist Undertones
The only part played by a black actor in the movie is John, whose unfailing loyalty to the white main character is uncomfortable to watch. The audience never finds out anything about his personality, background, or motivation for running around after Ellie when she treats him with apathy at best and takes advantage of his kindness at worst. John is never afforded any agency and appears as a prop for the white girl’s development. The most egregious offense is when Ellie screams in bed with John because of the ghosts, and her white landlord perceives it as rape and threatens to kill him. The racial politics of a rape accusation by a white woman against a black man are extremely fraught but completely unacknowledged by the movie as John continues helping Ellie.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Last Night In Soho attempted to tackle the issue of women’s sexual exploitation by men in the entertainment industry. However, Wright misunderstood sexual power dynamics so thoroughly that it became a far-fetched prop for plot development rather than a real-life problem that society needs to face and deal with. The superficial genre-hopping, comical rendition of the villain, and the final plot twist completely undermine the movie’s subject matter. Furthermore, the politics of the movie’s only black character existing as a prop devoid of any agency are extremely problematic. At the same time, sexual exploitation is certainly a relevant issue post-Weinstein, one questions if the world really needed a movie about it directed by another middle-aged white man.
Works Cited
Daniels, Robert. “Last Night in Soho.” Roger Ebert, 2021, Web.
Geisinger, Gabriella. “Last Night in Soho Makes a Big Mistake With Its Major Plot Twist.” Digital Spy, 2021, Web.