The big twist of Last Night In Soho ‘s ending comes with its major identity reveal: that Ellie’s landlady, Mrs. Collins, is actually Sandie. Whereas Ellie believed the visions she had were of Sandie being killed in the bedroom she now lives, that wasn’t quite what happened.
Ellie sees her mother’s spirit in a mirror and then a vision of Sandie, who waves at her and blows her a kiss. Edgar Wright first conceived the idea for Last Night in Soho in 2007.
Last Night In Soho’s ending features some big reveals and surprise twists to bring Edgar Wright’s 2021 movie and the story of Ellie to a close. Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Last Night In Soho.
In the context of Last Night in Soho, Rigg’s final film, she thus represents the true living memory of that world—which by the hardness of her stare is not nearly so rosy and beatific as pop culture has reduced it to be after 50 years of nostalgia. Indeed, the romantic nostalgia in Soho extends far beyond Ellie’s starstruck eyes for Sandie.
What is the theme of Last Night in Soho?
The return of Sandie in the mirror in Last Night In Soho ‘s ending fits with one of the movie’s core themes, which is the danger of living in or holding on to the past, and that the obsession with nostalgia isn’t necessarily a good thing. The way Sandie appears to Ellie is her being giving a glossy sheen, which is how the past is often remembered: the bad bits are forgotten about or kept out of focus, and instead imagery and iconography conjures up a strong sense of feeling and longing for a perfect place and time that never truly existed. This is true of Ellie’s arc in the whole movie, from her move to London in the first place and the realities of what the big city and university life is really like, to the dark underbelly of the 1960s dreamworld she envisages. Much like Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy movies dealt with perpetual adolescence, Last Night In Soho is about how people reflect upon the past and don’t learn from it or grow away from it, and just how dangerous that can be.
From the very beginning of Last Night In Soho, it’s established that Ellie possesses one very notable ability: that she can see what seems to be visions of dead people. At first, the movie presents this as though Ellie only has visions of her mother, who took her own life several years before the events of the movie, but it’s also clear this is something that’s been happening for a long time (perhaps since her mother died). When Ellie moves to London, though, it becomes apparent this extends beyond just her mother, as she begins to have visions of the 1960s and the singer Sandie, which then increasingly take over her reality. Ellie’s grandmother refers to these visions as a “gift,” suggesting some kind of supernatural power. Last Night In Soho, its ending in particular, suggests otherwise. It’s mentioned a few times that Ellie’s mother had schizophrenia; Ellie herself is not diagnosed with any specific mental illness, but the movie does suggest she is experiencing some kind of psychosis, which can include hallucinations.
Last Night In Soho doesn’t delve too deeply into Ellie’s mental state or why she sees certain people, but she did suffer a great trauma at a young age and that is still with her now. Her being in the bedsit where so many terrible things happens then only adds to this, with a sense of the supernatural still there – when it’s revealed the dead bodies chasing Ellie around were men killed by Sandie, then it implies they were trying to make her see what happened. Either way, Ellie clearly has some kind of connection to the dead, particularly if there is a strong link to them – whether that’s her actual relative, or the sense of sound and place that so strongly ties her to Sandie and why she becomes more susceptible to having these visions. As Ellie herself struggles in the real world and longs to break away from her struggles at university, then the visions initially offer a sense of escapism, meaning she welcomes them and wills them on, and is then unable to stop them later when things turn because it’s too far gone.
Last Night In Soho ‘s efforts are largely admirable and there’s no reason to believe its intentions are anything but good, but that doesn’t mean the ending ultimately works. Last Night In Soho is Wright’s most divisive movie, and much of that is because of its third act and its handling of sensitive issues. As mentioned, the film never takes the time to explore issues around mental health quite enough despite the plot necessitating it, but it runs into bigger issues as it looks to keep unfolding the surprise twists and maintain the sense of suspense. In particular, the reveal that Sandie killed all of those men, then her attempts to kill Ellie and John, undercut some of the aforementioned themes. In isolation, it might have worked better, but it’s worse when the dead bodies of her victims – but also, it shouldn’t be forgotten, her abusers – will Ellie on to avenge their deaths. The movie flips the script a bit too much in turning Sandie into a villain, muddling its messages completely.
Why does Sandie stay behind in the house?
But instead of following Eloise outside, Sandie chooses to stay behind as the house burns due to a pile of burning vinyl downstairs.
During this time in the 1960s, Sandie lived in the same bedsit that Eloise now rents and one night, Eloise sees Sandie killed by Jack in her bed. The past starts to bleed into the present as Eloise is haunted by the ghosts of the men who abused Sandie and goes to the police to report Sandie’s murder.
As Eloise tries to get away from Sandie, she continues to see the ghosts of the men that Sandie killed and, in an unsavoury twist, they ask her to “save us” and even pick up the phone for her. It’s hinted (but not confirmed) that the ghosts may have been trying to ‘reveal’ Sandie to her throughout the movie, leading to her visions.
Eloise starts to worry that London is getting too much for her, much like it did with her mother, so she makes the decision to move back home to Cornwall. Before she can do so though, she talks to Ms Collins who tells her that because of Eloise’s visit to the police earlier, they came to the house to investigate.
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Edgar Wright’s stylish psychological horror centres on aspiring fashion designer Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) who, after she moves to London, is able to mysteriously enter the 1960s where she sees wannabe singer Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy).
Somebody digging into Sandie’s past wouldn’t do for Ms Collins as she’s actually Sandie, who wasn’t killed in the 1960s. Instead, Eloise’s vision was of Sandie killing Jack and while a certain version of Sandie “died in that room”, she went on to kill every man who tried to force himself on her.
Both Eloise and John survived being poisoned and stabbed by Sandie, respectively, and it appears that Eloise doesn’t hold a grudge. As she sees her mother in the mirror, she also sees Sandie before all the murders started when she was a budding singer.
