Edgar Wright Says ‘Last Night in Soho’ Is a ‘Cautionary

Anyone who’s a fan of filmmaker Edgar Wright’s films will know that he’s an enormous cinephile with a knack for numerous references and needle drops to older many years and traditional filmmakers. But his new movie “Last Night in Soho” warns that idolizing the previous an excessive amount of will be bother.

In a video interview with TheWrap’s Beatrice Verhoeven on the Toronto International Film Festival, Wright and screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns described “Last Night in Soho” as a psychological thriller that slowly dips into full on horror. But, Wright add, the movie is a “cautionary tale” about nostalgia and the phantasm that there was ever a “good old days.”

“The moral of the story is, even if you could travel back in time, you can’t have the good without the bad, so it’s sort of a cautionary tale for those who are overly nostalgic about the past,” Wright stated. “There is no perfect decade where everything was good and nothing was bad. It doesn’t exist…They like to imagine it was all better before but, of course, that’s not true.”

“Last Night in Soho” particularly is the story of a teenage woman (Thomasin McKenzie), who’s obsessive about the fashions and types of the ’60s. When she travels to London with desires of being a clothier, she discovers that she will be able to see visions of London in 1965. After witnessing the homicide of a singer named Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy), she goes on a mission to trace down the killer that’s nonetheless on the market in current day.

Wright has been serious about the story for “Last Night in Soho” for the higher a part of a decade, and he even first thought of Taylor-Joy for a job after seeing her in “The Witch” at Sundance in 2015. But as Taylor-Joy has blossomed as an actress and film star, he realized that the half he initially envisioned for her, the lead character and clothier, may not be proper.

“By the end of the first draft, I said to Anya, I’m sending you the script for ‘Last Night in Soho,’ however, I’d like for you to look at the part of Sandy instead of Eloise,” he stated. “And to my ongoing delight, she said, I’d love to do the movie and I’d love to play Sandy.”

That opened up a chance for him to solid McKenzie as Eloise, whose personal journey to London completely mirrored the journey of her character.

“There’s something very powerful, which you don’t always get the ability to do, is casting an 18-year-old as an 18-year-old,” Wright added. “She’s living through the story in this very vicarious way.”

“Last Night in Soho” is screening on the Toronto International Film Festival and can open in theaters from Focus Features on Oct. 29. Check out the complete interview above.