Here are the biggest takeaways, question and theories from an insane first trailer for Last Night in Soho. For some time, Last Night in Soho has been little more than an intriguing question mark on the cinematic calendar of Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver). First confirmed in early 2019, principle filming took place that summer, but additional material was shot the following year while coronavirus remained in full swing. Delays caused by the pandemic have pushed Last Night in Soho all the way back from September 2020 to October 22, 2021.
Directed and co-written by Wright (Krysty Wilson-Cairns receives the other screenplay credit), Last Night in Soho assembled an all-star dream cast featuring Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie as leads, supported by Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, and Diana Rigg in her final performance. Household names aside, Last Night in Soho has largely remained an enigma. Time-travel, fashion and the 1960s were rumored as themes, while Wright has played up the psychological horror elements, but fans have been none the wiser as to Last Night in Soho's plot.
The first trailer has now arrived and we're... still not much wiser. This first glimpse conveys the tone, style and atmosphere of Wright's latest effort nicely, but leaves character and plot tantalizingly vague. Nevertheless, Last Night in Soho's trailer is packed with significant moments and striking visuals - these are the plot hints gleaned from the thrilling teaser, as well as the questions and theories Edgar Wright leaves us dancing with.
Sandy Is A Singer, Eloise Is A Troubled Student
Though the Last Night in Soho trailer keeps its secrets, we get two (or should that be one?) detailed character breakdowns. On one side is Thomasin McKenzie's Eloise - a fashion student seemingly taking her first tentative steps into university life, moving out of the family home and winding up alone in the dim fogs of London. Though we see Eloise on nights out with friends, she's clearly detached and troubled, isolating herself from the outside world.
Starring opposite McKenzie, quite literally, is Anya Taylor-Joy's Sandy, a cabaret singer and style icon. Sandy appears confident, glamorously dressed, and enjoys a certain degree of fame, at least in local circles.
The Timeline Is Split Between The Past & Present
Last Night in Soho is set within two distinct time periods. Eloise begins in the modern day (more or less, those are some pretty new headphones), while Sandy hails from the 1960s. An especially prominent Thunderball poster confirms the exact era as December 1965. If the trailer footage is anything to go by, Last Night in Soho will spend far more time in the past, which makes sense, as the visuals are an obvious Edgar Wright love letter to 1960s cinema.
It's evident enough that Eloise is the one slipping back in time, but does that door swing open both ways? Or can Anya Taylor-Joy only appear in the past? More pertinently, what special quality of Eloise's allows her to travel between time periods? Last Night in Soho offers no hints as to why a fashion student from London has developed powers of time travel, but her journeys are through time only, not space, meaning Eloise enters 1965 in the same physical place she departed the present.
Eloise Is Traveling Through Time In Her Sleep
Exactly how Eloise is drifting back 60 years isn't yet clear, although the Last Night in Soho trailer would suggest sleep is the trigger. Eschewing the usual methods of DeLorean, portal, hot tub, etc., it appears that whenever Eloise drifts off at night, she awakens in 1965. You'd naturally question whether these experiences are dreams, visions, hallucinations, or some other psychological manifestation, but Last Night in Soho shows us a hickey (love-bite to the British) on Eloise's neck following a frisky encounter with Matt Smith in the past. Taking this scene at face value, Last Night in Soho's 1965 is not only very real, but has a tangible effect on Eloise when she returns to the present. If she can get the Eleventh Doctor's teeth marks on her neck, she could be hurt or killed, which raises the stakes considerably.
Eloise & Sandy Are The Same Person (Probably)
Last Night in Soho heavily suggests that Eloise and Sandy are one and the same, employing clever mirror image shots to highlight how everyone around Eloise sees her as "Sandy." The implication here would be that Eloise falls asleep, travels to the past, then either occupies the real Sandy's body, or is morphed into Sandy upon arrival. The exact nature of their connection remains predictably ambiguous, but we can infer that, initially at least, Eloise is masquerading around London's 1960s nightlife in the guise of Sandy.
That dynamic isn't necessarily set in stone, however, as a later shot depicts Anya Taylor-Joy striding down a dark alley, with Thomasin McKenzie chasing her from behind. We also witness Eloise in an empty club, watching while Sandy performs on stage. Could it be that, just as Eloise begins to enjoy her nightly trips to the past, she discovers she isn't the only "Sandy" in London town?
Will Eloise Become Obsessed With The Past (& Sandy)?
Returning to the present day, Eloise sits in a classroom sketching Sandy from memory, using her alter ego as a model for fashion designs. Eloise gradually becomes more like Anya Taylor-Joy's character in her dress sense (adopting the bright pinks and makeup), before visiting a salon and deliberately styling her hair to match Sandy's from the 1960s. Apparently, slipping into the past will spark an obsession that'll blur the lines between Eloise and Sandy, casting doubts over where one psyche ends and the other begins. With Last Night in Soho billed as a psychological thriller, that obsession is unlikely to fall within the parameters of "healthy." Eloise could begin neglecting her real life for the bright neon of the 1960s, or perhaps even reject modern life altogether, refusing to return.
This begs the question of which came first? Is Eloise inspired by Sandy, with her innate swagger and unrelenting style, or did her inspiration create Sandy as an expression that Eloise is unable to convey in her regular life? Which brings us neatly to...
Does Sandy Exist?
Last Night in Soho is already drawing comparisons to Fight Club, where (spoiler alert) Edward Norton is Brat Pitt all along. The connection between Sandy and Eloise is obviously very different (as proven by the mirror shots), but Sandy could still be revealed as a figment of Eloise's imagination, just like Fight Club's Tyler Durden, who Norton's character invented due to the frustration of a dead-end, excitement-free existence. By the same ticket, the bold, colorful Sandy could be nothing more than a mask for the shy and retiring Eloise - an idea the trailer's choice of song corroborates - "when you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go... downtown."
Does Terence Stamp Know What's Going On?
Last Night in Soho offers but a single shot of Terence Stamp's mysterious character and, out of anyone, he has the look of a man who knows his stuff. The trailer's tagline begins "when the past lets you in..." and the wording implies some sort of doorway between eras. Presumably, such a gateway is managed, and Terence Stamp could be the figure responsible for "letting" Eloise into the past. Exactly why she would be afford such access (whether by Stamp's character or another) is one of Last Night in Soho's biggest lingering questions, but if some shady agent is guiding Eloise into 1965, they likely have a more sinister motive for doing so.
Matt Smith's Jack Is A Killer?
One man who certainly does appear to bring sinister motives is Matt Smith, playing Jack. The Last Night in Soho teaser footage gives a rough idea of how Jack enters Eloise's life. While living it up in 1965 Soho, the student from the future meets Jack on a night out, and romantic frisson ensues. Reading between the lines a little, the pair look to be meeting up every time Eloise slips back into the past and puts on her "Sandy" outfit, but things soon take a darker turn.
During a neon-lit sex scene, passion turns to violence, and a knife is brandished in the bedroom. Slowing down the footage, Smith seems to be on top of Eloise/Sandy holding a knife to her throat. Cut to a later shot, however, the same weapon is now in the hands of a female, although the owner of the arm isn't shown. Is Matt Smith a straight-up killer in Last Night in Soho, and Eloise was merely unlucky enough to fall for his charms? Or is the increasingly toxic balance between Eloise and Sandy somehow at the root of this predatory twist?
It could be a coincidence, but killers called Jack who wield knives and target young women have somewhat of a history in London. Soho isn't quite Whitechapel (although both are north of the river), and it might explain why he was never caught...
What "Truth" Will Come Out?
Last Night in Soho's trailer is a nightmarish whirl of amazing visuals and tantalizing teases, but asks far more questions than answers. Sadly, the tagline isn't much clearer - "when the past lets you in, the truth will come out." The phrase could be interpreted as meaning Eloise has been living some kind of lie since long before she started time-traveling, but only by delving into the past can the deception be untangled. One theory could be that Eloise is her own grandmother, conceiving and giving birth to her mother or father in the 1960s in a vomit-inducing twist on the classic grandfather paradox - especially if Thomasin McKenzie's character doesn't make it to the end credits.
Another way of decoding the tagline is as an exchange between timelines. Eloise goes to 1965 and larks around as Sandy, having a ball, but while she goes into the past, could something else come out in her place? The mechanics of Last Night in Soho's time travel are far from clear right now, but if Eloise is vacating her body to inhabit Sandy's, could Sandy be doing the same to Eloise in the future?
Are The Ghosts Past Time Travelers?
Last Night in Soho's trailer is a delightfully stylish nostalgia trip, full of dazzling costumes, showbiz glamour, and... DEAR GOD WHAT ARE THOSE?!
Abruptly changing gear, Eloise finds herself at a spooky fancy dress party, though it's not obvious whether this shindig takes place in the past or present. She glimpses the ominous silhouette of a man watching over her, before a quartet of ghoulish watchers appear on the dancefloor. And they're not here to to throw shapes and get drunk. Since no one else in the packed club reacts, Eloise alone can see these party phantoms, and the creeps haunt Eloise back to her apartment. There's no telling why they're attacking her, but the most obvious assumption would be to "protect the space-time continuum" etc. But might the ghosts be previous time travelers who also become too enamored with the past to return to the present, and transformed into their current horrific forms as a result? This future could await Eloise unless she refuses to let go of Sandy, presenting a neat metaphor for prioritizing the here and now over nostalgia.
Cracking Mirrors
As Last Night in Soho's trailer ups the ante, cracking mirrors rapidly become a recurring visual. Eloise returns to her apartment, and the vanity to her left already looks smashed. When a hand reaches through the floorboards, glass shatters without reason, and the same happens when another ghoul reaches through a cloth partition. The footage ends with glass cracks emerging over a still image of Thomasin McKenzie's stunned face.
Putting our amateur psychologist hat on, the cracks may be indicative of the narrowing mental divide between "Eloise" and "Sandy," but switching to our more familiar science-fiction headgear, the imagery could imply that Eloise's shenanigans in the 1960s are playing havoc with the natural flow of time.
How Much Of This Is In Eloise's Head?
The overarching mystery of Last Night in Soho is simply how much of what we're seeing in the trailer is genuine, and how much is a manifestation of Eloise's considerable imagination. Could the so-called time-travel be nothing more than a psychological shift, whereby Eloise views her modern day surroundings through a 1960s lens? In the day, she's a regular student, miserably enduring 2020s life, but after falling asleep, Eloise awakens in the night to see the world as it used to be, hitting the town and adopting an entirely new persona to match. This would mean Matt Smith's Jack has a modern counterpart, the Thunderball poster is actually for No Time To Die, and the only person who actually sees Sandy is Eloise. The aforementioned ghouls could even be the deeper traumas that pushed Eloise to such psychological extremes in the first place. Either way, this certainly isn't our last night pondering what on Earth happened Last Night in Soho.
