Last Night in Soho
Last Night in Soho
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Last Night in Soho

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Last Night in Soho

Last Night in Soho is a 2021 psychological horror film directed and co-produced by Edgar Wright, and co-written by Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns. It stars Thomasin McKenzie as a naive teenager who moves to London to study fashion design; there she is haunted by visions of Sandie (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), a glamorous young woman who had lived during the Swinging Sixties. The cast also features Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Rita Tushingham, and Michael Ajao, with Diana Rigg and Margaret Nolan in their final film roles. Rigg and Nolan died in 2020, and the film is dedicated to their memories.

Following its premiere at the 78th Venice International Film Festival on 4 September 2021, Last Night in Soho was released theatrically in the UK and the US on 29 October 2021 by Universal Pictures and Focus Features, respectively. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its technical aspects, direction and performances, while its writing received some criticism (especially the ending). The film grossed $23 million worldwide on a budget of $43 million. The film was nominated for two BAFTA Film Awards, including Outstanding British Film and Best Sound.

Eloise "Ellie" Turner, a sweet and naive teenager with troubled mental health, loves the music and fashion of the Swinging Sixties and dreams of becoming a fashion designer. Her mother, who was a fashion designer, killed herself when Ellie was a child, so Ellie was raised by her maternal grandmother. She occasionally sees her mother's ghost in mirrors, something her grandmother is aware of.

Ellie moves from her rural home near Redruth, Cornwall, to London to study at the London College of Fashion, where she has trouble fitting in with her peers, especially her bullying roommate Jocasta. Only John, another student, is kind to her. Unhappy in the dormitory, she moves into a bedsit owned by the elderly Ms. Collins.

That night, Ellie has a vivid dream where she is transported back to the 1960s. At the Café de Paris, she observes a confident young blonde woman, Sandie, inquire about becoming a singer at the club. Sandie begins a relationship with the charming teddy boy manager, Jack. The next morning, Ellie designs a dress inspired by Sandie and discovers a love bite on her neck.

Ellie has another dream in which Sandie auditions at a Soho nightclub, arranged by Jack, before returning to the same bedsit that Ellie is renting. Inspired by these visions, Ellie dyes her hair blonde, changes her fashion style to match Sandie's, and gets a job at a pub. She is observed by a silver-haired man who recognises her similarities to Sandie. In further dreams, Ellie discovers Sandie is not living the life she had hoped for, now being pimped by Jack to his male business associates.

In her waking life, Ellie is disturbed by increasingly menacing apparitions that resemble Jack and the men who exploited and used Sandie. After she has a vision of Jack seemingly murdering Sandie, she decides to track down the silver-haired man, who she believes is Jack. She goes to the police but is not taken seriously, though the kindly female detective expresses concerns for her wellbeing. She tries to find newspaper reports about Sandie's murder. Instead, she finds stories of local men who vanished without a trace. Believing she must avenge Sandie, Ellie confronts the silver-haired man. He denies killing Sandie and leaves the pub but is struck by a taxi and killed. Ellie's boss reveals that the man's name was Lindsey, not Jack. Ellie recalls encountering him in her dreams; he was an undercover vice officer who tried to encourage Sandie to escape her life of prostitution.

Panicked, Ellie goes to inform Ms. Collins that she is leaving London. Ms. Collins tells her she knows she went to the police because the "nice police lady" came to check up on her. She then reveals that she is Sandie. Ellie's vision of Sandie's death was actually a vision of Sandie killing Jack when he threatened her with a knife. Sandie then lured the men she was pimped to back to her room and killed them, hiding their bodies in the house's floorboards and walls. Ms. Collins has drugged Ellie's tea with the intention of killing her to ensure her silence.

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