Content Warning: This article contains discussion of violence against women, as well as spoilers for 'Last Night in Soho.'
As both a writer and a director, Edgar Wright has issues with female characters. Most of the women in his movies are limited to the roles of girlfriend or comic relief, and much has already been written about how Scott Pilgrim Vs the World relates to the less-than-ideal stereotype of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. From the trailers, his latest film Last Night in Soho looked to change that.
Boasting two female leads (a first for Wright) and co-written by 1917’s Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Soho could have been the film that set the record straight with women in Edgar Wright films. And for much of the runtime, it is. But then its final act rolls around, and things get messy – and not in a good way. Things get messy in the sort of way that leaves a bad taste in the mouth – one that threatens to sour the entire film up to that point. And not only is that not fun for the viewer, it muddles the film’s ultimate message to the point that it’s incomprehensible. It’s not what you’d want from your first film with women front and centre.
Last night…
But let’s backtrack, first of all. Last Night in Soho follows Ellie (Thomasin Mackenzie), a young woman who can see ghosts (sort of), as she moves to London from a small Cornish town to become a fashion student. She quickly moves out of her student digs and rents a small room from an old woman named Alexandra (the late, great Diana Rigg). At night, she starts having visions of a young woman in the 1960s named Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy), who dreams of being a professional singer. Sandy meets Jack (Matt Smith), who promises her fame and stardom, but ends up pimping her out to various men, each of whom Sandy believes will further her career. One night Ellie sees Sandy being murdered by Jack, and sets out to solve her murder, all while being haunted in increasingly threatening ways by the men who abused Sandy as the past and the present begin to collide.
It’s worth outright stating that much of Last Night in Soho is genuinely excellent. The performances are great (Mackenzie and Taylor-Joy are as fantastic as we’ve come to expect from them, while Matt Smith is clearly having a great time being evil), and it’s seriously unsettling when it wants to be. Its problems lie in its final act, which is so poorly misjudged it nearly sends the whole thing careening off a cliff.
After Ellie confronts the man she thinks is the killer (which he isn’t) and he’s killed in a car crash, she goes to her landlady to tell her she’s leaving Soho. She sits down with a cup of tea to explain, and in the conversation that follows there are twists abound. The revelations are threefold:
Firstly, Sandy isn’t dead. She is, in fact, the landlady Alexandra
Secondly, Sandy killed Jack in self-defence, then got bored of being abused and started killing the men she brought back to her room (the same room which Ellie has been renting)
And thirdly, she wants to kill Ellie to prevent her telling anyone her secret
And it’s at this point Soho totally lost me.
She said…
To be clear: I’m absolutely fine with the first two of those three reveals. They’re pretty neat, and give the narrative a nice twist in its final act, as well as a Promising Young Woman-style edge to its feminism, which is always appreciated. It’s the final one that I have a problem with.
Let’s not mess about here: Sandy is a victim of coercion, manipulation, and, ultimately, sex trafficking. What Soho does in its final act is to turn her into a villain. The only reason Sandy doesn’t kill Ellie is because the ghosts of the men she killed plead for help and pass Ellie the phone, allowing her to call the police. That’s a big ol’ yikes from me, Edgar.
There are two main issues with this. The first is that it stigmatises sex work, which is a legitimate profession when it can be undertaken safely and with care. That’s why things like OnlyFans are so important: they give people a platform to perform that they have full control over. Sandy had no control until she took it by force. She was forced into a situation she didn’t sign up for, and had to kill to get out of it. That’s a pretty cool character arc right there, but Soho villainises her for it for no reason.
The second issue is that it doesn’t achieve anything, and ultimately winds up feeling completely tone deaf in 2021. It’s such a confusing narrative choice because the film gains nothing from it: the same effect could have been achieved by keeping the male, faceless ghosts as the villains they were up to this point, and having Sandy and Ellie confront them together, rather than confronting each other. But what’s perhaps most egregious about it is the way it makes victims of Sandy’s abusers.
Oh baby I feel so down…
In late 2021, we’re perhaps more conscious of violence against women and girls than we have been at any point in our history. More and more people are waking up the idea that this is a serious issue that isn’t going away until every single man on the planet changes their behaviour (and yes I know it isn’t all men but just … don’t). Last Night in Soho is a film embedded in this historic violence, and wants so desperately to say something about it. But in its desperation, it gets lost and confused.
In villainising the victim and victimising the villains, all in the name of a plot twist, the film completely misjudges the current mood. I obviously can’t speak for the women in my life, or the women in the film’s audience, but this felt like the wrong call on the film’s part.
I’m not interested in tales of female suffering anymore, or in women being villainised for taking back control of their lives. I want tales of female redemption, of women taking control and telling the world to get fucked, because this is their life, and no one is going to tell them what to do with it (and for the record, Ridley Scott's The Last Duel is a great example of a recent film that did this really well). Last Night in Soho could have been one of those films. But by trying too hard to be clever, it fails the women it’s trying to save.
Well, that got a bit heavy, didn't it?
I realise it's been a while since I've written anything on here, so sorry for that! I've been low on inspiration and also flat-out at work, so I haven't had a lot of time to sit and write like I want to. But I knew after I saw Last Night in Soho a few days ago that inspo had finally struck, and I had to get some thoughts written down. So I hope you enjoyed!
Hopefully it won't be too long before I write here again, but, as ever, no promises. Stay safe out there!
Images courtesy of Focus Features. All rights reserved.
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