Past Imperfect: ‘Last Night in Soho’ and Dismantling the Myth of Nostalgia
By Brian Keiper
In what feels like a previous life, I worked as a music director in several churches. One of the aspects of that job I considered simultaneously rewarding and terrifying was planning and executing the annual Christmas Eve services. I was often tasked with making them modern for the folks who only darkened the door once or twice a year while still pulling in those traditional elements to appease the old-time regulars. This was practically an impossible task on all fronts as everyone has their own traditions and memories about these kinds of big celebrations. So, when the comments rolled in after returning from a couple days off, I inevitably learned that I had disappointed many, many people. What it always came down to was nostalgia. Most of the time, I simply did not live up to the (probably non-existent) perfection of the celebrations and Christmas services that lived in many of the parishioner’s memories. But thus is the power of nostalgia. World without end. Amen.
What is it about us that longs for another time and place and refuses to believe that when and where we are right now, and who we are experiencing it with, could possibly be worth anything? We always want more — something intangible, something other, something out there just beyond our grasp. Granted, most nostalgia is pretty innocuous, like saying Mac and Me is a masterpiece (was it great or were you eight?) or clichés like “they don’t make ’em like they used to” and “back in my day…” What I’m getting at is more insidious. The longing for the past that is destructive to our present, trapping us in a cycle of being so caught up in a rose-colored vision of another time that we fail to see its flaws or, even worse, ignore living our best life now. This is not only poisonous to our present and future, but unfair to the past as well. This is at the core of Edgar Wright’s dismantling of the myth of nostalgia, Last Night in Soho (2021).
Eloise “Ellie” Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) is obsessed with the swinging sixties. Posters for Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) and Sweet Charity (1969) adorn her walls. Original pressings of Peter and Gordon, Dusty Springfield, and The Kinks albums spin on her classic-style turntable or, when that isn’t possible, mp3 versions constantly play through her ever-present headphones. Her dream is to go to fashion college to follow in the footsteps of her mother, who died when Ellie was young, and her grandmother, a seamstress who raised her most of her life. When she gets into the London College of Fashion, it appears that her dreams of Soho and Carnaby Street in the era of the “Mods” are about to come true, but reality proves to be much harsher than expected. She is ridiculed as a rube by her roommate Jocasta (Synnøve Karlsen) and her friends, doesn’t have any interest in the loud dormitory parties with their crowds and modern music, and just generally feels like a fish out of water. She happens upon an advertisement for a flat in Soho that is being let out by the elderly, and rather stern, Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg) and moves in immediately.
As she goes to sleep on her first night in the flat, under the cycling blue, white, and red neon lights from the French Bistro sign outside her window, Ellie finds herself transported back to 1965, the height of swinging London, in one of the most effective, goosebump-inducing sequences I have ever experienced theatrically. She finds herself both observing and experiencing the thrill of the era through the eyes of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy) as she is seduced by the handsome and charming epitome of 60s masculinity outside of James Bond himself, Jack, played by Matt Smith in a role very different from his turn as the Eleventh Doctor on Doctor Who. This is the idealization phase of the film. We as an audience fetishize this bygone world just as much as Ellie in this sequence and fall under Jack’s spell just as much as Sandie. This “mirror world” is a kind of echo of the past. It’s not quite real but not a mere fantasy either.
The fetishization of the past has been around as long as there have been human beings. Terms like the “Gay Nineties” (referring to the 1890s) and the “Roaring Twenties” bring to mind parties and high times, while ignoring the dark elements of each era such as economic depression, Jim Crow racism, marginalization of women, and gangland violence. When I was a kid in the 80s, there were dozens of films about the 50s. Most of them depicted it as a simpler time of familial and political stability. When a film undermined such nostalgia, it was blasted or ignored. Phillip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (1983), which attempted to humanize the Mercury Seven astronauts through humor, was immediately stamped as a political statement and was a box-office bomb. One of those original seven, John Glenn, wrote in his memoir about how much he hated it, calling it “Abbott and Costello Go to Space.” Over the past several years, we have been experiencing a very long kick of 80s nostalgia films and television series, which seem to be made by people who grew up in the 90s watching Amblin productions. Some, like Bones and All (2022) manage to strike a balance of honesty, with its characters dressing in realistically ugly fashions and listening to lousy music that was popular at the time, while Stranger Things and The Goldbergs reek of “weren’t the 80s just so rad?” in a way that feels inauthentic and pandering. Well, at least they do to me.
The problem with fetishizing the past is that it fails to see the flaws that were very extant in every era throughout history. Human beings are imperfect and messy. People have a tendency to idealize the past, but the truth is that the past was once the present, and the people of that time longed for a past they deemed to be better as well, which also never really existed. With so many looking to bring back the past, how many are ignoring the present in the process? In Last Night in Soho, Ellie becomes so fixated on the feeling she gets in her nocturnal world that she fails to see the good in her life right now, specifically in the person of John (Michael Ajao), a fellow design student. When he asks her out, she declines in favor of spending another night with Jack and Sandie. But soon the reality and darkness of the world she has been escaping into makes itself known. Jack is a seducer in more ways than one. He ensnares young, attractive women with dreams of stardom into a web of male entertainment and coerced sex work. He is an abuser and a scoundrel who has lured women like Sandie for years.
The devastation Ellie feels when the rose-colored glasses are shattered is almost unbearable and she finds herself unable to function in either the past or present. She begins to see ghosts of the men that used Sandie and drained her of her autonomy like a puppet on a string as one of the songs in the film suggests. The ghost sequences are genuinely stirring and frightening. Each man is faceless for a reason because they all might as well be the same predatory creature. Ellie persists because she wishes to somehow save Sandie but feels helpless as her mysterious visions become more acute and far darker than she ever imagined they could be when she began this journey. Ellie becomes trapped inside the mirror world and is unable to intervene in any kind of meaningful way to stop the horrible things she witnesses from happening to Sandie. Ellie begins to dread returning to her apartment and witnessing a past that she cannot change. In our world, we are also helpless to alter the past.
This section of the film illustrates the converse of nostalgia, which sees the past only as good, and highlights the devastation that comes with fixating on the negative. This tends to be a more personal kind of hindsight fixation that can often be paralyzing. We can easily become so fixated on our past failings, hurts, or traumas that it becomes nearly impossible to move forward and function in our daily lives. This is a great tragedy, one that can extend the cycle of trauma and depression to the next generation. I’m not saying that we should all just “get over it” and “move on,” that is unrealistic and unhealthy, but like Ellie, we should seek out those who are able to help us heal. Healing will likely never be total, but it is possible though practically never if we try to go it alone. In the film, Ellie has John who is constantly there for her though it takes her quite some time to see what is right in front of her. Then again, that is one of the more grounded aspects of this fantastical film. More likely than not, someone is there right in front of us, but we become so fixated on things from the past that we fail to see the present.
It is natural for us as humans to long for more and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this ambition. It pushes us to higher heights and to strive to better ourselves and society. When we become locked in a fantasy of nostalgia, however, this can become dangerous. In Last Night in Soho, however, there is hope. As Ellie learns the truth of Sandie’s story (which I will not spoil here), the film heads toward its conclusion. In the end, Ellie manages to find her voice as a designer by drawing on the past, the present, and all those things that make her who she is, including the ghosts she sees looking back at her from the mirrors. There is much we can, and should, learn from the past. After all, those who do not learn from history are indeed condemned to repeat it, a phenomenon that the observant can see happening all around them today. But we must not fixate on the past in a way that stops us from living now. Yes, we can draw inspiration from the past but there is no need to be shackled to it. Our freedom, and Ellie’s, comes from the ability to see the past clearly, live fully in the present, and look toward the future with that greatest of motivators — hope. 🩸
About
Brian Keiper is a featured writer for Manor Vellum. Brian’s also written for Bloody Disgusting, Dread Central, F This Movie!, Ghastly Grinning, and others. Follow him on Instagram @brianwaves42.
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