Edgar Wright is one of my favorite directors of modern day due to his stylishness and the way he mixes and mashes elements into his films to make them wholly original. Not to mention the large amounts of foreshadowing that you sometimes miss on the first viewing if you're not observant.
As such, I was really excited for the film as this not only looks different from his other films but also a lot darker and more serious. By itself, it's not a bad film but compared to Edgar Wright's other films, it's definitely his worst film as a director.
The premise involved Eloise, an aspiring fashion designer who has a love for the 60s and this gift of going to the past and seeing ghosts. She gets accepted into the London College of Fashion, only to find out that London isn't as glamorous as she thought. This increases further when she does go into the past to the 60s and comes across Sandie, an aspiring singer who meets Jack (Matt Smith), only for the relationship and her career to take a dark turn.
Right off the bat, one of the things I loved about this film was how it deconstructed the past and nostalgia. Even though the aesthetics were one of the primary things that we remembered back then, in reality life was much worse back then than it is nowadays. What made the film disturbing for me was seeing the misogyny and all the perverted stuff that took place back then as well as Jack, who is easily the most disturbing character in the film. It even extends to modern day, where just after arriving in London, Eloise gets creeper out by a cab driver who even lampshades that he could be her first stalker. She gets out and hides in a shop and luckily he leaves and we never see him again but still, it's such a realistic element and it's disturbing because it could happen to anyone.
Chung Chung-hoon's cinematography is also a highlight as we get some very beautiful neon shots of London, especially during the 60s. The framing is also perfect, as is the case with every Edgar Wright film.
Music choices are perfect as well and we even get Anya Taylor Joy's version of Downtown.
Every perfomance feels perfect: Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor Joy, Matt Smith, the late Diane Riggs, Terrence Stamp, etc. We even get Sam Claflin (who plays Terrence Stamp's younger self) and Jessica Mei Lei (of Shadow and Bone fame) as one of Eloise's classmates.
For the first half of the film, I was loving it and was intrigued. I was waiting to see where it was going to go and how it would tie into modern day. But sadly, when we get to the Halloween party, it goes downhill hard. This is where Eloise starts seeing ghosts of all the people Sandie has killed, Jack included, and compared to her mother, here they start haunting her. It then culminates when Mrs Collins (Eloise's landlady) is revealed to be Sandie which leads Collins to poison Eloise and stab John (who was one of the only classmates that was nice to her). From there we gets this absolutely trippy chase sequence that not only feels out of place but feels like it's from a different story, narrative-wise.
This is pretty bizzare, considering that both Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson Cairns (who wrote 1917 and Penny Dreadful) are actual good writers. Many people have said this film felt like it was trying to be two things and honestly, I agree fully.
In conclusion, even though it's a good film, it's definitely Edgar Wright's worst film and desperately needed a better second half.
As such, I was really excited for the film as this not only looks different from his other films but also a lot darker and more serious. By itself, it's not a bad film but compared to Edgar Wright's other films, it's definitely his worst film as a director.
The premise involved Eloise, an aspiring fashion designer who has a love for the 60s and this gift of going to the past and seeing ghosts. She gets accepted into the London College of Fashion, only to find out that London isn't as glamorous as she thought. This increases further when she does go into the past to the 60s and comes across Sandie, an aspiring singer who meets Jack (Matt Smith), only for the relationship and her career to take a dark turn.
Right off the bat, one of the things I loved about this film was how it deconstructed the past and nostalgia. Even though the aesthetics were one of the primary things that we remembered back then, in reality life was much worse back then than it is nowadays. What made the film disturbing for me was seeing the misogyny and all the perverted stuff that took place back then as well as Jack, who is easily the most disturbing character in the film. It even extends to modern day, where just after arriving in London, Eloise gets creeper out by a cab driver who even lampshades that he could be her first stalker. She gets out and hides in a shop and luckily he leaves and we never see him again but still, it's such a realistic element and it's disturbing because it could happen to anyone.
Chung Chung-hoon's cinematography is also a highlight as we get some very beautiful neon shots of London, especially during the 60s. The framing is also perfect, as is the case with every Edgar Wright film.
Music choices are perfect as well and we even get Anya Taylor Joy's version of Downtown.
Every perfomance feels perfect: Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor Joy, Matt Smith, the late Diane Riggs, Terrence Stamp, etc. We even get Sam Claflin (who plays Terrence Stamp's younger self) and Jessica Mei Lei (of Shadow and Bone fame) as one of Eloise's classmates.
For the first half of the film, I was loving it and was intrigued. I was waiting to see where it was going to go and how it would tie into modern day. But sadly, when we get to the Halloween party, it goes downhill hard. This is where Eloise starts seeing ghosts of all the people Sandie has killed, Jack included, and compared to her mother, here they start haunting her. It then culminates when Mrs Collins (Eloise's landlady) is revealed to be Sandie which leads Collins to poison Eloise and stab John (who was one of the only classmates that was nice to her). From there we gets this absolutely trippy chase sequence that not only feels out of place but feels like it's from a different story, narrative-wise.
This is pretty bizzare, considering that both Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson Cairns (who wrote 1917 and Penny Dreadful) are actual good writers. Many people have said this film felt like it was trying to be two things and honestly, I agree fully.
In conclusion, even though it's a good film, it's definitely Edgar Wright's worst film and desperately needed a better second half.