Wicked Little Letters (Thea Sharrock, 2023)
Wicked Little Letters is a delightful little Brit-movie, starring Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley at their comedic best.
This period film, written by Jonny Sweet and directed by Thea Sharrock (Me Before You), is loosely based on a true story from the 1920’s, about the poison pen letters that upset the residents of a sleepy little town called Littlehampton on the coast of Sussex.
The recipient of said letters is one Edith Swan (Colman), who is accused of being a ‘foxy-ass piss country whore’ by an anonymous letter writer. And not just once, when the story begins Edith is on the receiving end for the 19th time! It's a bit like Twitter, only via snail mail.
Devoutly religious and distinctly middle-class Edith suspects her lowly next door neighbor Rose Gooding (Buckley), because she is a single mother, walks around on bare feet and swears a fucking lot. Oh, and she is Irish too, which doesn’t really help either.
Soon Rose is both facing a court case for slander and very much in danger of losing custody of her daughter Nancy (Alisha Weir), with only Rose’s musician boyfriend Bill (Malachi Kirby) to look out for her if she goes to prison for any serious amount of time.
Fortunately for Rose, there is a brand new invention called a ‘Woman Police Officer’ on the force, one Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan), who thinks there might be more to this case than meets the eye - and the eyes of her idiot superiors too.
Still, the mystery aspect of this black comedy feels a little under nourished. Yes, there are a lot of (supporting) characters, who could be seen as possible suspects, but the real culprit is simply revealed halfway through the movie.
It doesn’t really matter. The real delight of this very funny and also visually appealing movie is seeing two of the worlds best actresses - who previously worked together on The Lost Daughter -having a go at each other, as the once friendly relationship between Edith and Rose goes from bad to much, much worse.
The script is full of hilarious one-liners, and even though swearing in itself doesn’t make a movie good (or bad), Wicked Little Letters certainly benefits from an almost absurd amount of profanity.
The paying audience I saw the movie with seemed to agree, as there was laughter all through the screening, always a sign that a comedy is hitting the right notes.
And it’s not just Colman and Buckley who get the chance to shine. Vasan is quite a scene stealer too, while there is a murderer’s row of character actors here as well, including Timothy Spall as Edith’s truly horrible father Edward and Joanna Scanlan as a hygienically challenged local woman who helps officer Moss solve the case.
Colman is great as per usual, while for the very impressive Buckley this is perhaps her best role since she broke through with Wild Rose, which garnered her a well deserved Oscar nomination.
Wicked Little Letters isn’t as stylistically radical as The Favorite, for which Colman won her Oscar, but as a period comedy it’s still radical enough to become a firm audience favorite.
Note: After its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, Wicked Little Letters is now in cinemas in the United Kingdom, Ireland, The Netherlands, Belgium and France, with Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Germany and the United States to follow in the coming weeks.