Edgar Wright is one of the most inherently musical directors of the 21st century. From the beginning, he’s had a knack for mixing a creative soundtrack with vibrant action. It’s two opposing genres that usually don’t go together, but in his hands make for some of the most fluid, poetic cinema imaginable. You are in awe with how the 4/4 beat is timed to the movement of an actor, or how a fire extinguisher goes off when Freddie Mercury yells “explode!” He is so in tune with cinematic language that few have matched his ability to take different ideas and fuse them into something more brilliant.
This is true once again in his latest Last Night in Soho (2021) where he explores the mystery of a singer who interacts with a fashion designer. Without giving much away, it’s one of his most dazzling productions yet, managing to feature an incredible use of editing, and of course a soundtrack that grabs you from the first frame. It’s largely a 60s pastiche, and the way that he finds the right track to complement the mania and horror of his plot is another chef’s kiss. While I personally find issues with the overall narrative, the structure is once again flawless.
Which makes one wonder why he hasn’t made a movie musical. Outside of maybe Damien Chazelle and Jon M. Chu, very few actually feel like they understand the language well enough. There have been GOOD versions of the genre, but few really embrace the artifice, willing to make something so big and shameless. Outside of more subversive takes like Dancer in the Dark (2000), movie musicals were designed as escapism. Wright knows this. He did it in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) where several scenes were progressed through music, highly stylized with an 8-bit charm that saw characters flying around, punching people into coins while an announcer shouts “K-O!” So, why doesn’t he just make one already?
Depending on how you describe a “movie musical,” I’d make the argument that at worst he already made a backdoor musical. Baby Driver (2017) doesn’t move or talk like a regular movie musical, but exploring music’s relation to action, it would be easy to argue that this is a revolutionary shift in the genre. It’s arguably a more masculine take, as reliant on referencing Michael Mann as it is Baz Luhrmann. It’s a world where so many ideas collide that it eventually becomes a miracle that any of it landed, let alone that it became Wright’s first major success in The United States. It’s maybe secretly his artsiest project to date, and somehow that translated perfectly.
I think that the easiest way to look at this is to compare Wright’s approach to French director Jacques Demy. With films like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), Demy explored an American genre through a distinctly French lens (in the latter he even features George Chakiris and Gene Kelly), adoring the imports that inspired him to make films. He wears his references on his sleeves, where characters will pass a cineplex and find posters for various upcoming attractions with movie stars. There’s an affection that one cannot appreciate in America, where the studio system feels more commonplace, especially in the 60s. There’s a reinterpretation of choreography and set designs, where Demy’s iconography often featured painted walls instead of elaborate sets. There was a naturalism, maybe itself a commentary on the artifice he sees in films like An American in Paris (1951) and reality, explored perfectly in films like Lola (1961).
Again, Wright is shamelessly in love with cinema and has made no bones about hiding his influences. Hot Fuzz (2007) featured a subplot analysis of Bad Boys II (2003) and Point Break (1991). While his stories are organic otherwise, he is a British filmmaker using American imports to define his style, praising Michael Bay for his camerawork. While he comes across as someone who is more inherently driven by action cinema, there is something to be said about his use of musical technique within this. Shaun of the Dead (2004) finds characters beating zombies in time to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” punctuated by small comic moments.
At its core, both musicals and action films are about choreography. There is a need to perfectly time the movement of an actor along with aspects like language or music. It makes one wonder why these two genres have rarely overlapped, save for the fact that action films are generally more masculine, where silence is more seen as a strength, at most accompanied by a soundtrack that reflects some internal emotion. Even then, only masters will think to make one compliment the other in a way that brings out some deeper meaning, an idea that goes beyond simple awe at a character’s physicality.
What Wright has done with Baby Driver is create one of the more distinctively 21st century movie musicals imaginable. It’s true that none of the central actors sing a song nor is there a consistency track to track in terms of plot, but what he’s done is find the subversive core of how action can be musical. While some may find the novelty of the premise a bit goofy, the idea of casting a character as using music for escapism (in a literal sense, tinnitus) comments on something greater about the genre. The protagonist, nicknamed Baby, rarely speaks and treats his reality like a fantasy. In the opening scene alone, he takes the downtime during a bank heist to perform karaoke in the car, using windshield wipers to sway along as he sings into a water bottle.
Most songs are taken from one of his many iPods. It is necessary for Baby to have the track curated to the moment, lined up to specific moments. As seen in a moment set to The Damned’s “Neat, Neat, Neat,” he will grow insecure if one moment is out of place. Without the music, the fear of the world starts to bleed into his fantasy. The idea of living around people who don’t share their real names, existing almost as caricatures, there is a divide that feels comfortable. While Wright slowly tears away the comfort along with the convenient use of music, the action and drama become more exciting. As a song points out at one point, there is “nowhere to run to, baby.”
Wright strikes me as an individual who spends hours in record shops, picking up every vinyl that has one or two tracks that grab his attention. He knows the deep cuts. On a music level, he’s designed Baby Driver around novel concepts. The title references a Simon & Garfunkel song while many others feature singers punctuating lines with “Baby.” While most of them use the word adoringly, Wright has repurposed it as a way of being a conversation with his Baby. They are voices from beyond space and time guiding him, keeping him stable in a world that is constantly on edge, guns flying everywhere and the guy in charge is a shady fugitive.
Throughout most of the film, the dance choreography is replaced with action. The opening number set to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bell Bottoms” is an extensive, hyperactive car chase that finds Wright editing every corner turn to a manic guitar. The high octane chase from police plays like a ballet, the car being the dancer with such expressive movements. As every scene to follow ebbs and flows in terms of “dance,” there is a soundtrack playing underneath, capturing the core of Baby’s stability. There is a sense of fantasy, a Michael Mann-Meets-Busby Berkeley approach where quiet moments play like poetry, ranging from artificial language in bank heist characters to something more authentic in his love interest Debora.
These two worlds come together like Wright’s film collection sitting on his shelf. Debora is one of the very few characters whose name is actually known to the audience. She is pure and simple, reflecting something more tender. Meanwhile, the bank heist characters play like archetypes from action films, having elaborate nicknames, wild tattoos, and a machismo that hides hostility. So long as Baby can help THEM, they will get along. Once that trust is broken, the story begins to crack, where suddenly an escape from this toxicity becomes central. Given that all of the actors are American, there is another subtext that Wright is commenting on genre tropes in elaborate ways that is itself affectionate.
The musical works through the vein of action, finding an exterior shell of masculinity shining through. Baby is taught to be quiet and strong, and thus the musical component works as such. They are voices in his head, repressed and waiting to come out as a better form of expression. It’s a need to be oneself, and not everyone is going to understand his wishes. People laugh, calling him slow, pretending to sucker punch him just because of his differences. Again, the music keeps him stable, and it’s tolerated so long as it keeps the operations working smoothly.
I think one of the better examples of how the choreography of dance and action works is in a sequence set to Focus’ “Hocus Pocus.” Over the course of a few minutes, Baby finds himself cornered. If the police don’t catch him, then his former partners in crime will. It’s a number that finds him jumping across tables in a park, sliding down an escalator, and hiding in clothing shops in order to barely evade capture. Wright makes it feel tense, finding the sense of discovery so imminent in every move, and all while performing light parkour. It’s the closest to a direct dance that the action becomes, breaking free of car chases and being about the flexibility of the individual. The soundtrack begins to break apart, reflecting the lack of control in Baby’s own life. Eventually, the iPod drops, the tinnitus overpowering him, reminding him of harsh reality.
It's true that this can be excused as style over substance, that it’s nothing but mere pastiche. However, Wright’s effort feels totally in place to comment on something greater. There is a sense that he’s saying something about “Baby” as a common term of endearment, subverting it by placing it into a violent context. He’s exploring artifice along with the components of a musical in a context that has rarely been explored. It’s a love letter and reinvention all rolled into one, where even the use of music features multiple versions of either a melody or full songs, such as the opening and closing number “Bell Bottoms” and Run the Jewels' “Chase Me.” There’s recontextualizing everything, questioning what value it serves to greater cinema. It’s like if Demy wanted to satirize Sylvester Stallone, making something that is hypermasculine but from a more concerted and artistic approach.
Of course, the unfortunate reality of Baby Driver is that despite it being a success story that elevated Wright’s profile, it was also his most problematic. In the months following its release, Kevin Spacey became notorious for allegations regarding abusing young men. Similarly, Ansel Elgort has gone on to have a few accusations of his own that sour the film in the greater context given his status as a sympathetic lead. While he still has some place in Hollywood, notably the upcoming West Side Story (2021), many have already turned on him in ways that may hurt his career in the long run.
Every new Wright movie is worth checking out for this or that reason. Last Night in Soho is no different, which at worst is unpredictable and keeps you guessing. At best, it’s another example of an auteur able to mend visuals to music so well that he becomes a master. Baby Driver may not be nearly as flawless as it seemed in 2017, but it definitely reflects a creator who had a vision with a lot to say and does so in a very inventive and original way. Whether or not you consider it a movie musical, it’s a unique experience that only a meticulous mind could create. It’s a ride that’s unlike any other, and hopefully, he finds ways to only make more ambitious and accessible cinema in the future.
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