Last Night In Soho Cert: 18, 1hr. 56mins
Rating: 
Quantity Cert 12A, 1hr26mins
Rating: 
Passing Cert: 12A, 1hr. 38mins
Rating: 
Antlers Cert: 15, 1hr.39mins
Rating: 
Some films seem to have your name on it and I have spent half of my working life in Soho, where I was able to lockdown with two fashion students. Last Night In SohoIt is definitely one.
After all, it’s about Ellie – played by Thomasin McKenzie – a young, nervous fashion student coming to modern-day London to study at a college in the heart of the West End, only to find herself magically, miraculously, slipping back in time to Soho in the early 1960s.
These visions, dreams, and plot devices are they real?
After all, it’s about Ellie – played by Thomasin McKenzie (above, with Matt Smith and Anya Taylor-Joy) – a young, nervous fashion student coming to modern-day London to study
Part of the appeal of Edgar Wright’s clever and wonderful-looking film is that it’s never quite clear. All we – and Ellie – know is that when she goes to bed in her old-fashioned bedsit, strange things happen.
Such as finding herself in the Café de Paris watching Cilla.
Or, to be more accurate, watching a beautiful, ambitious young woman – who we soon learn is called Sandie, played by the excellent Anya Taylor-Joy – watching Cilla and dreaming of becoming a singer herself.
As the excited Ellie, I was hoping for glamour, Soho nostalgia, and 1960s frocks. Wright quickly gives us something darker and more sinister.
It’s a little repetitive and flirts unhelpfully with the idea of real mental illness, but features wonderful re-creations of pre-swinging London and a deeply moving final performance from Diana Rigg.
Anyone who is looking for a new hit of 1960s fashion may want to consider giving it a try. Quantity – a documentary about miniskirt pioneer Mary Quant, made by Sadie Frost – a try. Although you could argue that such a renowned fashion innovator deserves more cinematically original work than the straight up-and-down tribute given by talking heads, the archive clips are an absolute joy.
Anyone needing another hit of 1960s fashion might want to give Quant – a documentary about miniskirt pioneer Mary Quant (above), made by Sadie Frost – a try
Passing is adapted from the 1929 novel by US author Nella Larsen and refers to the practice of pale-skinned black women choosing to ‘pass’ as white. It’s an explosively sensitive subject for any film-maker but Rebecca Hall, making her directorial and writing feature debut, pulls it off magnificently.
This is a subtle and intelligent black and white picture.
Two childhood Harlem pals meet again in a New York hotel. This creates a complicated situation. The nervous Irene (Tessa Thompson) is only ‘passing’ so she can escape the city heat in a cool but racially off-limits hotel.
Clare (Ruth Negga), a gorgeous, blonde-coiffed woman with a great hairstyle, has decided to go. Her racist husband does not know that she is married with a mixed-race wife.
Their friendship is grudgingly rekindled, Clare driving it forward, and Irene, who is married a black doctor and volunteers for a charity that helps the poor, is more reluctant to believe her friend is telling the truth.
Thompson and Negga look amazing in this beautiful film about more than race.
Antlers may have a moody atmosphere of dereliction and be produced by Guillermo del Toro but at heart it’s a horror film we’ve seen many times before. Yes, there’s something nasty deep in the American woods… again.