#Last Night In Soho Ending Explained: Nostalgia Is A Killer

The sudden appearance of a happy Sandie is a big surprising for an ending, given the preceding conflict and tragic end of the woman who once went by that name. Indeed, it could mean a number of potential things, so we’ll break down the ambiguous possibilities one by one. First, she could be merely seeing Ms. Collins’ spirit once again restored and whole, returned to her most idealistic and positive state. We know Ellie can see spirits, and Sandie’s presence in the film’s final moments follows a joyous moment for Ellie, followed by her mother’s happy visitation. The positive tone overall could be speaking to that most optimistic potential outcome.

While that’s the most pleasant of the potential meanings, a darker interpretation could be that there’s some remnant of Sandie still in Ellie, perhaps a side effect of spending so long entwined in Sandie’s life and trauma. In this regard, it could be seen as an ominous warning for Ellie not to repeat her earlier naive nostalgic blindness when a similar starry-eyed optimism fueled Sandie’s downward descent. This more negative interpretation recalls Nietzsche’s classic warning:

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”

Ellie’s success notwithstanding, Sandie’s tragic end and surprising reappearance may portend a warning to be on guard lest a similar tragic end befall our protagonist fashionista.

A final possible interpretation follows the film’s own premise (and takes a decidedly literal interpretation of that same Nietzsche quote). Just as Ellie toured Sandie’s 1960s life as a passenger visible only in mirrors, so, too, may 1960s Sandie be a passenger in our own day who experiences the world through Ellie’s actions. In this interpretation, the appearance could be the direct reversal of how Ellie saw the 1960’s via Sandie’s eyes. While this appearance is the most conceptually shocking in some ways, it’s also the interpretation that fits with the film’s unique logic in the most poetically circular way. Moreover, in some ways it opens the film up to its most optimistic potential outcome. Just as the experience of 1960s Sandie’s fall from grace put Ellie in a downward spiral, so too may experiencing Ellie’s more modern, grounded one put 1960s Sandie on an upward path. It may even prevent that descent entirely, saving her life and the lives of the men she killed. Of course, we don’t know for sure … but here’s to hoping.