The Glorious Mess of Last Night in Soho

Thomasin McKenzie stars as a teenager, Lola, living on the outskirts of London with a bizarrely ambiguous disorder: She sees ghosts but only through the mirror but only one at a time and — — let’s not think too hard about it.

Anywho, the plot kicks off when she gets accepted to a prestigious fashion university and starts off with a pretty heavy dose of social anxiety compounded by a bullying roommate (Kassius Nelson). When she decides to take matters into her own hands by getting Satanic revenge on her roommate — -oh wait, that’s Carrie. This is definitely not a strong anti-bullying anthem of a film. Lola retreats into the posh neighborhood of Soho where she gets an uber-creepy apartment on the fourth floor of an empty apartment. Save for a strict landlord played (in a swan song of a performance by Diana Rigg) who lives on the ground floor.

As soon as Lola moves into her new apartment, she gets visions of a new ghost pal (Anya Taylor Joy) that become sensually delighting, unnerving, and emotionally exhausting all at once. She becomes completely consumed while we, as an audience, are increasingly left to pick up disparate parts in what amounts to a combination thriller-mystery with sleek period visuals and masterful editing (something Edgar Wright’s films rarely lack).

For someone who has made a name for himself in hybrid comedy (comedy apocalypse, comedy horror, etc.), Edgar Wright deserves a lot of credit for his ambitions in making a film that’s not comedic at all. It works on many levels: As a mystery, a sleek period piece, a coming-of-age story, and a thriller. The only area where it lacks is that it goes a little heavy on horror tropes with the score and Eldritch Abominations.