Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright, 2021) Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham
Other critics managed to find ways to like the fact that this is generically indeterminate. I didn't. If you can't figure out whether a story is tragic or comic you can't respond appropriately (emotionally). See Knight, 2012.
When the monsters first started appearing, I found them unsettling, but wasn't sure I was supposed to be 'horrified'. By the time they had got really 'horrific' (which took most of the long film time) I was finding them mildly amusing.
The only aspect I found really engaging was the contemplation of the career of the egregious Anya Taylor-Joy. She's very good, but I wondered if she should have wasted weeks or months of her remarkable life on this third-rate vehicle. ... But it may turn out to be the only film in which she sings and dances.
... Oh, and of course it was wonderful to see Rita Tushingham, Terence Stamp, and ... Diana Rigg! at the other ends of their careers, in Rigg's case her last performance: I don't think she lived long enough to see the final film projected. Liverpuddlian Rita Tushingham was The Girl with Green Eyes (Desmond Davis, 1964) people my age remember from A Taste of Honey (Shelagh Delaney, 1961). She'll be 80 this year.
I didn't know it was Diana Rigg's last performance of any kind until after I'd seen the film. I was sad, but happy to remember her in The Avengers (TV, 1965-).
Knight, Ingle 2012, On Taking Liberty: The Role of Emotion in Creating a Mimetic Illusion, PhD dissertation, Murdoch University.
Garry Gillard | New: 29 January, 2022 | Now: 29 January, 2022