Past and present meet ‘Last Night in Soho’

Edgar Wright melds past and present in his stylish new film “Last Night in Soho,” which opens Friday in North American theaters

VENICE, Italy -- It’s a few hours before the world premiere of Edgar Wright’s “ Last Night in Soho ” at the Venice Film Festival and Wright is getting a little teary eyed. He’s telling a story about Dame Diana Rigg. It’s a good one, too, involving Campari and soda on the last day he saw her.

Most stories involving Rigg have a supporting Campari and soda part.

It's a story he’s told before and will certainly tell again since a few weeks after that encounter she died at the age of 82. But it’s been a long day that isn’t quite over yet and Wright has become acutely aware that it’s impossible to separate this movie, a passion project of his for over 10 years, from the surreal experience of not only working with a star who had epitomized 1960s glamour, but also befriending and losing her.

But if there ever was a film fit for reflection about past, present, fantasy and reality, “Last Night in Soho” is it. The stylized story imagines a young, 1960s-obssessed fashion designer, Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) who travels to London for school. When she finds a room to rent in an old home in Soho, she begins having increasingly realistic dreams about the era and an aspiring singer, Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), that starts out as sparkling, champagne fun, but takes a sinister turn the deeper she goes. The film opens in theaters Friday.