Director: Edgar Wright
Notable Cast: Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt
Smith, Diana Rigg, Michael Ajao, Terence Stamp
At this point, I'm feeling a bit out of the loop. I adored
Edgar Wright as a director in decades previous, but his last two films -
including Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho, have left me oddly
cold. I think it’s because I feel like Wright has started to write his scripts
to match visuals versus crafting visuals to fit the depths of the script. It's
a small and nuanced change in approach, but one that I feel undercuts many of
the interesting elements in his latest film, Last Night in Soho.
With his love letter to giallo and the murder mysteries of
the 1960s (some serious Mario Bava vibes here which is always a plus), Last
Night in Soho is a gorgeous piece of cinema, and its direction and editing
are impressive. The use of dream-like flow and fading with the narrative is
artfully done. If anything, Wright is definitely soaring with his visual pops,
use of mirror tricks, and creating that sense of "parallel" timelines
that evokes a sense of fantasy that slowly seeps into nightmares.