‘LAST NIGHT IN SOHO’ RATED R

A trippy homage to swinging ‘60s London and twisted tale of time-travel to a horrific nightmare, Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho” often seems like the polarized world of the dark side of sex and graphic violence that would be the hallmark of a David Lynch film.

As a country girl from Cornwall with dreams of becoming a fashion designer, Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie) is about to venture forth to the big city of London, leaving behind her doting grandmother (Rita Tushingham).

Orphaned at a young age, Ellie aspires to follow in her late mother’s footsteps. That may explain why her bedroom, complete with posters and ephemera from the 1960s, looks like a shrine to a bygone era.

The unsophisticated Ellie proves to be an outcast to the hip other girls at the fashion school. Her mean-girl roommate and the other party girls are so obnoxious that she leaves her dorm for a Soho rooming house run by Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg in her last movie role).

While Ellie’s designs show promise, they are fittingly retrograde to the ‘60s era. Her obsession with the past soon thrusts her into that Carnaby Street period as she dreams of a stunning blonde named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy) who sings Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield tunes.

Any doubt that Ellie has ventured into the mid-1960s is dispelled when emerging onto a street where a movie theater’s marquee hosts an oversized poster of Sean Connery as James Bond in “Thunderball.”

As Sandie’s carefree lifestyle in Soho looms large in Ellie’s mind, the fashion student becomes so increasingly fixated on her alter ego’s world that she dyes her hair blonde and dresses in vintage clothes.

At times it seems like Ellie is inhabiting Sandie’s body, but soon recoils at the advances made by Sandie’s pimp Jack (Matt Walsh), a slick scoundrel with an ugly streak of thuggish behavior. The glamorous world of Sandie is a total illusion.

“Last Night in Soho” is ultimately a psychological thriller that offers more style than substance, and that would not be so bad but for the increasingly repetitive nature of the horror elements of ghoulish men as disturbing visions.

On the other hand, while the Sixties nostalgia of great music and fashions delights, Anna Taylor-Joy brings the era so vividly to life that one wishes her screen time would have been even greater.



‘ONLY THE ANIMALS’ NOT RATED

The French mystery thriller “Only the Animals” is an art house film that made its mark at the 2019 Venice Film Festival and is now making its way to limited theaters.

A blurb on the poster calls it “A French Fargo,” which might be a stretch but for the film’s quirkiness and the fact that a snowstorm in rural France reminds one of a cruel winter in North Dakota.

How do five characters on two continents factor into the death of one socialite woman in the highlands of southern France where one can drive for miles and see nothing but snowdrifts and occasional livestock?

For one thing, director Dominick Moll may have been inspired by Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” in that the film’s structure of adopting successive points of view creates mystery and suspense.

In the press notes, the director disabuses that notion, observing that everything revolves around the mystery of Evelyne Ducat (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) where “the points of view of his characters are incomplete, intertwined, and do not necessarily cover the same period.”

Switching viewpoints, “Only the Animals” reveals the secret connections between a reclusive farmer, an unfaithful husband and wife, a lovelorn waitress and an African internet scam artist, exposing a world of greed, lust, betrayal, and loneliness.

The film opens in the shantytowns of Ivory Coast’s capital city where Armand (Guy Roger N’drin), a young black man, is seen riding a scooter with a goat on his back. Your first thought is how does he figure in the story?

From coastal Africa, we move quickly to a frigid winter in rural France where married social worker Alice (Laure Calamy) is having an affair with morose farmer Joseph (Damien Bonnard).

Alice is the first to spot Evelyne’s abandoned car on the side of a desolate road. The police question Joseph who claims to know nothing about the driver but why are strange things happening on his property?

Shifting back in time, the bisexual Evelyne strikes up a tempestuous relationship with young waitress Marion (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) during a visit to a coastal Mediterranean city.

Tension arises when Evelyne, who’s just looking for sexual gratification, rebuffs Marion’s professed love. Does this make the young woman a suspect for murder?

What about Alice’s husband Michel (Denis Menochet), so desperate for an affair that he falls victim to Armand’s cyber-scam posing as the sexy Amandine who keeps asking for money?

What binds everyone in “Only the Animals” are deep, dark secrets and a search for love, often in the wrong places. Well, there’s also the tale of murder and intrigue to hold one’s interest.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.