Last Night in Soho 2021 Explained and Broken Down

Full Plot for Last Night in Soho 2021

Last Night in Soho opens up with a cheerful song from the 1960’s and a girl dressed in a newspaper floor gown dances down her hallway. We are introduced to the cheerful Eloise who has a clear desire for fashion design and a taste for nostalgic 1960’s via records she inherited from her grandmother. Eloise lives with her grandmother as her mother is passed away from suicide.

There is a brief conversation on how Eloise is “sensitive” to spirits and is asked if she’s seen her mother lately. Eloise lies and says no, when the audience sees a young woman in her mirror that was not Eloise a moment ago. Eloise is given a student grant to study fashion in Soho London. Her grandmother is happy for her, but wary as London is a very old city and with Eloise's condition to listen to the other side of the veil may prove to be overwhelming. It’s hinted at that this was what may have caused her mother to decide on suicide. Eloise brushes these concerns to the side as she sets out to settle in her new dorm room in Mid London.

Eloise’s simpleton clothing and manner are jeered at by her roommates that double as occasional models. Eloise's dorm roommate Jocasta is a true piece of work in how she effortlessly makes Eloise feel less than, separated from friends, and any successes Eloise has is belittled. After enough abuse from her roommate she decides to enquire about a single room in a neighborhood near her school.

She arrives at a broken down looking bedsit home where she is the only tennant to the elderly Ms Collins. Her room has a large window area that is near a neon sign that changes from red to white to blue periodically through her bedroom curtains. The first night she falls asleep she half wakes to a fever dream of walking out from her street onto the main road with huge marquee lights. She still wears her pajamas and has no shoes as she wanders aimlessly around. All the cars are circa late 1960’s, and as she drinks in the energy. She continues to wander as she’s welcomed into a high end swanky basement night club. A large mirror she walks by is not her reflection but that of a sweet blond woman in a pink party dress. The camera interchanges this blond woman in a pink party dress. As the blond woman walks by reflections Eloise appears to be this womans shadow, almost as if Eloise is experiencing all these sensations by living in this womans’ skin.

The woman in the pink party dress is approached by a middle aged man in a suit asking her luridly for a dance, but insinuating much more. The blond in the pink dress tells him confidently to get lost as she makes her way to the bar. She asks the man at the bar who is in charge of lining up the musical sets as she wants to be a singer on the stage. The barman points her over to a mysterious gentleman smoking a cigarette. She walks over to him playfully as all the while each mirror has Eloise watching. The blond in the pink party dress introduces herself as Sandie. The man with the cigarette is Jack.

Sandie and Jack take to the club dancefloor. The camera pans around the couple as Sandie and Eloise change places dancing with Jack. The Middle aged man again tries to preposition Sandie again, but Jack punches him and they run from the club laughing together.

Eloise wakes the next morning invigorated and begins her semester project based on the pink club dress Sandie had been wearing in her dream. She is complimented for her work by the teacher on how inspiring it is and is she sure she wants to use limited vintage fabric? Eloise excitedly says yes with confidence and no hesitation. The first glimpse of the audience seeing the bright confident girl dancing in her hallway since arriving at Soho. A gentleman classmate of hers asks her if she's doing anything later tonight as he’d like to spend some time with her. She smiles at him stating that yes, she absolutely has plans.

Eloise hops into bed that night clearly excited to get back to sleep to experience her 1960’s world. Eloise shadows Sandie once more when Jack (Who is very late) comes to pick her up at her front door. Sandie is put out, but Jack says he has a surprise for her. Jack and Sandie walk over to a dive bar in Soho that isn’t open yet. They walk in to see the owner facing his thrust stage with the stage lights on. Jack tells Sandie he’s lined her up for an audition and it’s right now. Sandie being the professional singer she desperately wants to be gamely walks up on stage and sings a slow acapella version of Downtown by Petula Clark. (Anna Taylor Joy actually sang this herself, of which I was impressed by.) The audition was a success. The owner looks to Jack stating “She can sing. What else can she do?” Jack smiles up at Sandie knowingly and walks her back home to the Bedsit that Eloise is living in. As they walk back, Eloise looks back to the nightclub dive they were just in and notices a stone lion's head above the door.

Eloise wakes up again feeling an energy about herself she begins to change her image to be that closer to Sandie by dying her hair blond, and shopping at antique boutique stores to find vintage 1960’s clothing. As she’s shopping at a vintage boutique outside the window across the street she notices a building with a stone lionshead. She walks toward the building wondering how she could be dreaming about a place that she’s never visited but actually exists. The shopkeep calls after her asking if she’s going to pay for that white jacket. It's 300 Euro. Eloise, realizing in order to feed her need to continue this fashion lifestyle, decides to get a job at a local bar. There’s an elderly grey haired gentleman at the bar who notices Eloise and takes especial interest in her recently chosen look.

Eloise enters her third dream. Eloise is sitting in the dive bar which is now in full operation and full of men in every seat around the stage. It’s a seedy burlesque as a woman dressed as a marionette sings a bad vaudeville tone. Then the backup dancers dressed as tasteless dolls with pushup bras and pigtails take the stage. We see Sandies face as she dances with her legs wide and pushing out her butt, she’s here, but nonplussed. Eloise stands up and turns a dark corner to see Sandie sitting in the claustrophobic dressing room taking off her makeup and crying quietly to herself. Eloise begs Sandie outloud to leave, but Sandie doesn’t hear her and is summoned to a club table as company for Jack. Eloise follows Sandie as her reflective shadow in every mirror. Sandie sits down near Jack, a businessman, and a few other ladies at a table. The man at the table asks meekly “how does this work?” as he begins to turn his attention to Sandie. It becomes clear that he is proposing openly to formally sleep with Sandie transactionally.

Sandie is appalled and looks to Jack to defend her honor like he did before as she states she’s Jack's girl. Jack somewhat shrugs at this and Sandie stands up from the table incensed. Jack chases after her and tells her if she really wants to be a singer, these are the things she needs to do to get ahead and she needs to trust him. Eloise is just as frightened by this and attempts to run with Sandie. Each turn in the hallway reveals a new horror. People in backrooms having sex, another backroom with a businessman getting oral from one of the dolly dancers from earlier. With each attempt to turn around or take a door, Eloise cannot seem to outrun the horror she’s found herself and Sandie in. Until one door opens up into Eloise's room where she can see Sandie in lingerie and a dead look on her face via her vanity mirror. With each change of the neon light outside the window a new outfit for Sandie is replaced. Sandie has done this dozens of times with dozens of men. Eloise looks forward in abject horror as the ghosts of the men lumber toward Eloise as she sits in the bed unbuckling their pants all about to come for her.

Eloise wakes up in a panic, but parts of her waking life don’t feel real, or she believes she is beginning to see the shadows of these abusive men everywhere. At one point she thinks she sees Sandie on the street in broad daylight and chases after her calling her name. Eloise chases her down an alleyway of which floods with ghostly men from before and behind. Faceless, grey, and incoherent as Sandie easily weaves her way through them allowing them to reach Eloise to engulf and overtake her. More dreams about Sandie. Sandie is in dark nightclubs dancing at the behest of Jack for his patrons. Sandie looks tired, possibly hooked on drugs, and definitely not herself. Sandie begins to lie repeatedly about her name as new men sit at her nightclub booth over and over again. Then there’s one man who feels a little different. He’s not looking for sex. Sandie takes notice and becomes a bit defensive. He’s a cop and says he makes a point of getting to know girls like Sandie. Sandie looks the cop over as Eloise wakes up on the street where she collapsed.

Terrified to go to sleep again, she stays at school as long as possible. The classmate who asked her earlier to hangout is named John. He asks if she’d be interested in going to a halloween party that the school is throwing nearby. Eloise jumps on the chance. With some simple halloween makeup, attends with him. Eloise is drugged by her former jealous roommate Jocasta at the party. And in Eloise's inebriated state she sees herself surrounded by the shadows of the men closing in on her slowly in the crowd of people again. Eloise runs out from the halloween party into the rain and running down alleyways as she sees Sandie in a white coat pacing ahead of her and through the blackened men spirits that close in and accost Eloise.

John left the party and followed Eloise, walking her back to her home. Eloise, still terrified of being alone, asks John to stay with for the night. She quietly sneaks John up to her room so that her landlady wouldn’t hear. Eloise and John begin to undress and kiss. Eloise, still unbalanced, sees a reflection of herself as Sandie on the ceiling with Jack crawling on top of Sandie and brutally murdering her by stabbing her repeatedly with a knife.

Eloise screams “Get off me!” over and over again to bewildered and disturbed John. John flees from her house, and Eloise is reassured by her landlady Ms Collins, and that they’ll discuss the fact she broke rules about men over to the house in the morning.

The next day Eloise goes to the police to tell them what she saw about the murder. That she believes its an old man that comes to the bar she serves at. They admit there isn’t much to go off of and there isn’t proof of a body. Eloise leaves the station dejected. At school Eloise has a breakdown in class tearing apart her pink club dress on her sewing model and runs out to the class crying when she sees a bloodied stabbed apparition of Sandie walking toward her in class. Eloise, distraught in the hallway, is approached by John again. He brought her books back she left in class and sat near her to ask her fully what was going on. She’s honest with him about what she’s seen and is determined to look up Sandies death as she’s sure the villainous Jack has gotten away with it for decades.

In the school Library she searches old newspapers during the rough time era she believed Sandie lived in. John tells Eloise he’ll be back while she searches. As Eloise focuses on her research the shadows of the dark and faceless men begin to approach Eloise and gravitate toward her. Eloise, grabbing sewing scissors from her backpack attempts to outrun them, but nearly stabs one of the ghostly men in the face when her hand is stopped by John. Eloise's mind clears and she nearly stabs her awful roommate Jocasta.

Dazed at her near violence Eloise leaves school. John Follows. Eloise is determined to confront the old man at the bar about Sandie as she’s positive it’s him. John goes inside the bar to look for the man, but he’s outside and Eloise confronts him. They get into an argument as the man brushes off Eloise telling her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. The old man begins to walk out onto the street and is hit by a cabbie killing him instantly. The bar owner Eloise works for runs out alarmed calling after the man on the ground. His name ISN’T JACK. The bartender explains the man who just died was a respected detective who worked Soho for many years who worked with the whores and prostitutes to help break them of their cycles and looking into missing persons around this area. He was the cop in the booth that Sandie was defensive toward.

Eloise goes back to her bedsit and asks John to wait outside for her in his car since the last encounter with the landlady went badly. Eloise was going to explain over a cup of tea what she had been experiencing, why she was screaming the other night, and ask if the Landlady knew Sandie.

The landlady pours tea for them both, and they begin to sip. The landlady somewhat brushes off Eloise's questions on Sandie saying no such girl is that memorable. Eloise mentions that she even went to the police to try to track down this girls killer, but that it wasn't possible to do so. The landlady takes especial interest about the fact Eloise went to talk to authorities. Eloise doesn’t really connect the dots, but begins to really take a closer look at the knick knacks in the landlady's room and the parallels they have to that of visions she’s had of a young Sandie. They’re the same belongings, even the same pictures.

Eloise puts together her landlady IS Sandie alive and well, but many of the men Sandie would bring back to her room may not be. In fact many are likely in the floorboards of the room Eloise slept in. The men never really made it out according to the glances we saw at the newspapers of the era that would show missing people, but not women, all men. Eloise begs that she won’t say anything to the police. The landlady says of course you won’t, as Eloise begins to feel woozy from being drugged by the tea. The Landlady then goes to find a hatchet to attack and kill Eloise with. A fire breaks out when eloise knocks over a flame. Eloise druggedly makes it upstairs to her bedroom, where the dark and faceless ghosts of the men circle around grabbing at Eloise and after a moment, Eloise realizes they’re asking her for help and vengeance to kill the Landlady who was once Sandie.

Eloise thoughtfully looks over to the Landlady who has opened Eloise's door. She tells the ghosts she won’t as the bedsit continues to burn. Sandie then walks into the burning room and sits on the bed. She is accepting death and seems to welcome it, that her death was many many years ago when she was young and it was gone when she decided to first Kill Jack. Eloise is assisted out of the burning building by John.

Fast forward to Eloise going to her first fashion showing of her designs at school. She’s a featured student and her work is well received. She sees her mother in a nearby reflection and keeps it quiet to herself happily in her heart. In another reflections she see’s Sandie who blows her a playful kiss.