ELOUISE IS off to London for her first year at fashion college. It has been her dream for years and despite some mental health struggles, she is very excited.
When she gets there she has an uncomfortable encounter with a taxi driver, then her roommates in student accommodation are not very nice to her. Quite quickly her mental struggles cause her to withdraw.
At night she 'Alice in wonderlands' into a dream world. In the dream world she is not Elouise anymore, but beautiful and confident Sandi, who lives in 1960s London. Elouise at first loves these escapes, but soon realises Sandi is in danger and wonders if there is anything she can do from the future to help.
This is another much delayed film due to Covid. Directed by Edgar Wrights (I am a huge fan of his from when his show, Spaced, on Channel 4 was like nothing I had ever seen before ). He has made some great films, everything he has done has been interesting, but for a while it has not always been very challenging work.The first time we go into the dream world is the highpoint of the film, featuring incredibly complicated choreography and editing as Elouise, reflected in mirrors as Sandi, has her whirlwind romance on her first night out in London.
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I do enjoy the film’s anti-nostalgia stance. I feel like we are constantly looking back with the old rose coloured spectacles in pop culture right now but this film looks back and says, yes the clothes were nice and the music was great, but Jesus it was an awful place to be a young woman. Not that it is much better now, but you get me.
This is a remarkably well made movie. Wright is such a talented technical director it almost feels like showing off. However he is sometimes the victim of his own talent in the sense that the plot often takes the back seat to a smart edit, camera flourish, or clever bit of choreography.
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There is so much going on on-screen, but very little of the plot is moving forward and he does tend to find himself a bit lost, often repeating beats, and it comes across a little clumsy.
Yet, when taking it as an extended episode of The Twilight Zone, or a tribute to those Giallo horror movies that never made much sense anyway, it is a great but shallow cinematic experience. That first night out with Sandi though, is absolutely worth the price of admission alone, and it deserves to be seen on the big screen if possible.
