Last Night in Soho offers vintage chills in fine style

The past, as L.P. Hartley reminds us, is a foreign country where they do things differently. Yet we are often inexorably drawn to it in the belief that different or not they did things better. It is that belief that is at the heart of the highly entertaining psychological horror Last Night in Soho.

The film is directed by Edgar Wright – his most mature work to date – from a script co-written by Krysty Wilson-Cairns. Full disclosure. Wilson-Cairns is a friend and was a student of mine for two years. I am as ever immensely proud of her, but that friendship has not influenced this piece.

As the title suggests, this is set in Soho. It is a time travel story with a twist which allows us to see contemporary London with its characterless bars and clubs as well as its Sixties heyday when neon-drenched Soho was one of the most vibrant areas in what Ian Fleming used to call, a thrilling city.

Given the nature of the film I am reluctant to say too much about the plot. Suffice to say it is the story of Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), an aspiring fashion designer from rural Cornwall who goes to study in contemporary London.

Eloise has what appear to be psychic gifts, although it may be a mental illness. But when she moves to the Big Smoke she starts to dream about Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wannabe singer in Sixties Soho. Sandie is Eloise’s portal to the world she has always dreamed of. But it wouldn’t be much of a film if the dream didn’t turn out to be a nightmare of the past which resonates menacingly in the present.

The film starts with one of Wright’s signature musical numbers and the Sixties soundtrack is one of the strong points of the mise en scene. These musical interludes are usually technical tours de force but, pleasingly, this time the content of the numbers adds layers of meaning.

The early part of the film is a slightly generic country mouse to town mouse story, but there is one chillingly well written scene in a taxi which hints at the menace to come. Very quickly Eloise ditches the Mean Girls scenario and takes a room in an old house owned by Miss Collins (Diana Rigg), a grande dame who is as much of a relic as the building itself. Eloise thinks this may be all she has ever wanted; then she meets Sandie, and, in story terms, we are off to the races.

This first meeting is spectacular. The transition from our contemporary world to vintage Soho is stunning; a combination of confident directing from Wright, dazzling cinematography from Chung-hoon Chung, and breath-taking production design from Marcus Rowland. A triumphant coup de cinema.

The story, conceived by Wright, is very much his love letter to the great days of Soho. Sixties icons such as Rita Tushingham, Diana Rigg, and Terence Stamp come and go, the now sadly gone Cafe de Paris typifies London night life, and above it all is a poster for Thunderball reminding us we are in 1965 in the coolest place on earth. There are lots of cinematic nods too and Wright, as the sort of director for whom nothing succeeds like excess, fairly ladles on the influences. Without trying too hard you can find references to Georgy Girl, Frenzy, Repulsion, several Dario Argento films, Black Narcissus, and a few others.

Unusually for Wright, there is also something underneath all of this. Wright, for me, is normally a director of great style and not much content, but there is real substance at the centre of this film. It makes several feminist statements, which is why I think it is his most mature work.

The beating heart of Last Night in Soho is a great performance from Thomasin McKenzie, for my money the most talented of her generation. Her characterisation of the febrile Eloise is note-perfect, it keeps the audience guessing about the story they are watching and captures the carefully constructed rhythms of the script to the letter.

In contrast Anya Taylor-Joy feels a little underwritten as Sandie. Everyone seems spectacularly incurious about her, especially Eloise, until the plot requires them to be. She feels more like a plot device than a rounded character.

Nonetheless both leads are excellent, Diana Rigg gives great support and, even if the red herrings are a bit obvious and Wright a little over-reliant on certain directorial tropes, Last Night in Soho is cracking entertainment with plenty of thrills and chills.

 

 

 

 

Dune is visually stunning, but narratively inert

Science fiction as a literary genre is the home of the multi-volume, doorstop-sized saga; the ambitious trilogy that turns into a turgid quintet, each volume denser and more complicated than the ones that went before. Dune, written by Frank Herbert, was probably the first of them; published in 1965 it went on to spawn five sequels from Herbert, as well as twenty-odd other prequels and sequels co-written by his son.

Dune isn’t a book, it’s an industry. And an incredibly influential one. Without trying too hard you can see Frank Herbert’s fingerprints all over Star Wars, The Matrix, Avatar, The Handmaid’s Tale, Game of Thrones, and a host of other genre favourites.

Over the years there has been one failed film project from Alejadro Jodorowsky, one critically reviled and commercially unsuccessful version from David Lynch, a TV miniseries that hardly anyone saw, and finally this latest version from director Denis Villeneuve.

This film is a long-cherished project from the French-Canadian writer director and even if it is not entirely successful, it is to his credit that it is at least coherent. Villeneuve has created a visual feast in this story of the desert planet Arrakis, home of the mysterious compound Spice which, among other things, pretty much guarantees near-eternal life. Spice is the most important thing on Arrakis and Arrakis is the most important thing in the Old Empire. It is the key to the Empire’s economic well-being and its political dominance.

Although Arrakis is populated by the nomadic Fremen, it is ruled by House Harkonnen who are in charge of spice harvesting on behalf of the Empire. Abruptly the Harkonnen are ordered off the planet which is then handed over to their rivals, House Atreides. The Harkonnen leave without protest leaving patriarch Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) to wonder what’s actually going on. In fact, the emperor has seen Atreides as a threat and orchestrated a conflict with the Harkonnen designed to wipe out the Duke, his wife Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) and their son Paul (Timothee Chalomet).

There is more to Paul than meets the eye. He has strange dreams, he appears to have powers, and he may or may not be a promised Messianic figure. Nonetheless, his mother is a high-ranking member of a secret and powerful sisterhood who are determined to protect this young man at all costs.

I should stop the plot about here because frankly, it’s exhausting. There is so much story in Herbert’s 800-some dialogue-heavy pages to cram into two-and-half hours that it defies belief. That’s why credit must go to Villeneuve for even getting this much done. This is only part one; the sequel will depend on box office.

Villeneuve wisely tells his story in visuals and the impact is staggering. This is a film where he is right in asking that you see it on the biggest screen possible. Some of Villeneuve’s frames would do justice to David Lean and the film that comes most frequently to mind is Lawrence of Arabia. But, oh for a young Peter O’Toole.

There’s no getting away from the fact this film is all exposition. Villeneuve can disguise it for so long with breath-taking images but this remains one big information dump. Once you’ve run out of spaceships to marvel at you are left with some pretty ponderous storytelling.

For me this is made worse by the casting. I’ve always found Timothee Chalomet to be an uninteresting actor, bland and characterless. There is little about him, for me, that demands attention, and he doesn’t hold the picture as, for example, O’Toole did for Lean. Zendaya, his putative co-star is given literally nothing to do – her entire performance can be seen, just about, in the trailer.

Except for Isaac, Ferguson and Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Harkonnen, I thought the casting was a big issue. Having Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem and others in a starry cast doesn’t really work if all they are doing is showing off the scale of the CGI. Almost every role is miscast.

Despite all this, Dune is worth watching simply because it is like nothing you have seen for some time. Villeneuve’s world-building is phenomenal even if the narrative lets him down. I hope the film does well enough to merit a second instalment because I want to see how well Villeneuve sticks the landing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Duel is Ridley Scott's best film in years

It’s a familiar story. A woman is raped. Her attacker says she led him on, her doubting husband is personally outraged, and amid it all, no one believes the victim. The difference is that this is not modern Hollywood, this is 14^th century France.

As the title suggests, The Last Duel is the story of the final legally sanctioned duel fought in Europe. This is not some Hamilton-style pistols at twenty paces affair; this is in fact trial by combat. Two men go into the jousting lists but only one will emerge. The winner lives, the loser dies – and incidentally is guilty. God decides.

But without giving anything away, the stakes could not be higher for all concerned.

The Last Duel is Ridley Scott’s best film since Gladiator (2000). It is a feminist epic and combines the strengths of the man who not only gave us Maximus, but also Thelma and Louise. Scott has taken the #MeToo movement, and, through the filter of the Middle Ages, he comes up with a story which is brutal and tragic and sadly as relevant now as the time in which it was set.

The film begins with the titular combat between two noblemen, Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) and Jacques de Gris (Adam Driver). They are very different men, both soldiers but Damon has risen through force of arms while Driver is a more political beast. His advancement is largely due to his friendship with their liege lord the duke (Ben Affleck).

This opening sequence shows what Scott is better at than any other living director. His sense of scale and his absolute control of his mise en scene means each frame is packed with content. There are few directors who have the eye of Ridley Scott.

Just as the fight begins, we flashback to the story of the relationship told Rashomon-style through each of the participants. Each chapter is labelled ‘The truth according to....’. Damon’s story is of a man trying to do his best but ill-used by a world and a system that is set against him, Driver insists however that it’s all a big misunderstanding and he is just trying to help his old friend.

At this point your sympathies are inclined to be with Damon and his hardscrabble existence until you remember there are three points to this triangle, and we have yet to hear from the victim Marguerite (Jodie Comer).

Up till now Scott has been dealing in the fashionable contemporary relativism that says that ‘my truth’ carries more weight than the objective truth. When we get to Marguerite however Scott makes it plain that we will now hear the absolute truth.

Incidentally, the subtle variations that Scott brings to each iteration of a scene – especially a crucial kiss – is testament to his nuance and subtlety as a director. There’s so much more to him than epic spectacle.

Up to this point in the film Jodie Comer has been largely a background character as either the dutiful wife or the object of desire. In her story she comes vividly to life as a fully realised strong female character who dominates the second half of the film with a performance that should get some awards season attention.

Comer exposes both Damon and Driver as spoilt, self-centred, petty boors, obsessed with their own entitlement. Her story is devastating and, rather like John Proctor in The Crucible, she will tell the whole truth even if it condemns her.

The first half of the film is written by Damon and Affleck and it’s all you would expect in terms of action and swagger. But for Marguerite’s story Scott hired Nicole Holofcener, acclaimed director, and Oscar-nominated screenwriter. There is a lot of anger in Marguerite’s story, but it is carefully managed by Holofcener’s writing. It is loud and strident when it needs to be but for the most part when everyone else has a broadsword Holofcener wields a stiletto, and it is every bit as effective. Marguerite’s view is no less brutal than anything going on in the arena.

Technically The Last Duel is magnificent, a visual feast from Scott’s frequent cinematographer Dariusz Wolski complemented by a fine score from Harry Gregson-Williams, another regular Scott collaborator.

The film runs a little long and structurally it’s a bit choppy but that is a consequence of trying to manage a complex narrative. The first half may feel a little generic but once Comer takes centre stage this is powerful stuff and should not be missed.