"Wicked Little Letters"

 2023 * R* 1h 40m  “Wicked Little Letters” is a wicked little film you can’t help but crack up watching. It’s about a character assassination that took place in Littlehampton, a sleepy seaside town in the south of England. The scandal was fairly tame by today’s standards, but at the time, the early 1920s, it rocked the nation. I thought it was amusing that today, a nasty comment on social media can practically destroy someone, while a hundred years one had to use the postal service to achieve the same thing. The methodology has changed, but the end result is the same. 

 The film has the feel of a BBC production, but includes so much swearing, I doubt they’d have anything to do with filming it. It stars a couple of my favorite actors, Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley, who happened to appear together in the recent movie “The Lost Daughter.” In that film they play the same woman at different points in her life. Here, their interactions are the crux of the film. Thea Sharrock directed. (I reviewed her fine film “The Beautiful Game” earlier this year).

 

Edith Swan (Colman) is a devout Catholic, and a priggish spinster who lives with her elderly parents Edward (Timothy Spall) and Victoria (Gemma Jones). Here, Spall is wonderful as the domineering, tyrant of a father who rules the household with an iron fist. He’s also a religious fanatic who makes his daughter read from the bible several times a day. Colman’s nervous twitches and grimaces perfectly help define her character. Things begin to unravel when the women in town begin getting obscene letters. And Edith is the target of a daily missive, laced with the worst kinds of verbal abuse. She immediately suspects her next-door neighbor, Rose Gooding (Buckley).

 

Rose is quite the character. She’s a bawdy Irish immigrant who lives with her boyfriend and her young daughter. She loves nothing better than to spend her free time in the local pub, drinking, singing, and stirring up trouble. Of course, she also happens to swear like a sailor, which makes her the prime suspect, in Edith’s eyes. Edith contacts the local constabulary and has Rose arrested, based on nothing more than a hunch. Because Rose can’t make bail, she’s sent to prison to await trial. 

 

Meanwhile the police station’s “Woman Police Officer” Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) decides to do a little sleuthing on her own. Her fellow officers are so sexist they refuse to just refer to her as a police officer but feel the need to add “Woman” to her title. They also feel that she has no business digging into the case on her own and when she does, she’s duly fired. 

 

Without giving anything away, let’s just say the real culprit of the obscene letter writing is revealed about halfway through the film. From this point on, the focus of the movie involves Officer Gladys’s detective work. A couple of Edith’s acquaintances Kate (Lolly Adelope) and Ann (Joanna Scanlan) aren’t her biggest fans and are eager to help Gladys in her investigation. One of the angles she pursues is analyzing the penmanship in the letters--something that’s scoffed at by her colleagues.  

 

I found the whole movie absolutely delightful. The acting is first-rate, as you’d expect from a cast that includes Colman, Buckley, and Spall. All the supporting actors are perfectly cast as well. I especially enjoyed the attention to detail paid to the 1920’s era costumes. One of the highlights of the film was watching Edith and her father reading the saucy letters out loud to each other. That alone is worth the price of admission.

 

If you’re looking for something a bit different, and oh-so British, don’t miss this charming little film. 

4 out of 5 stars

 

Note to parents: The film is rated “R” due to the foul language—it’s laced with F-bombs and other cusswords. Other than that, I think it would be suitable for older teens. 

 

Currently streaming on Netflix. And to rent on other services including Apple TV and Amazon Prime.