Last Night in Soho

Edgar Wright wrote the script with Krysty Wilson-Cairns; giving Sandie dialogue was her insistence, since the audience has to fall in love with her. The mirror tricks are carpentry. The cafe lobby was built twice, side by side, with twins Oliver and James Phelps as cloakroom attendant: one crosses the frame, the mirror slides away, and Anya Taylor-Joy stands in the second. On the dance floor Thomasin McKenzie and Taylor-Joy trade places inside a two minute Steadicam shot, ducking under the camera to Jennifer White’s choreography; cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon says it looks like motion control but is not. The staircase shot really was. The sixties were shot on 35 mm with anamorphic lenses, the present day with spherical ones, so the eras differ optically, not just in colour. The film is dedicated to Diana Rigg and Margaret Nolan, who both died in 2020. At the BAFTAs it was nominated for Outstanding British Film and for Sound; Belfast and Dune took those awards. The 43 million dollar production took 23 million dollars worldwide. A good fit if it matters that the trick holding two women in one mirror was built on set, and you watch the dance hunting for the cut. Not for you if you come for nostalgia and would rather the sixties Soho not become a crime scene.