Wicked Little Letters: Movie Review

Cast: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Hugh Skinner, Timothy Spall, Gemma Jones

Director: Thea Sharrock

Based on a true scandal that shocked 1920s England, comedic mystery movie Wicked Little Letters centres on the small town of Littlehampton as it recovers after the end of the war.

Colman stars as the pious and prim Edith Swan who begins to receive obscenity-filled letters and suspects they have come from her liberal neighbour Rose Gooding (Buckley). After getting the police involved, Rose is thrown in jail.

However, local constable Gladys Moss (Vasan) believes Rose is not to blame - and sets out to solve this perplexing case of curse words and vendettas.

Much of Wicked Little Letters' humour derives from the continual arrival of letters at the Swan house, complete with their language that feels like it's written by someone who doesn't really know how to swear or be obscene. There's plenty of mirth to be mined from the likes of Colman and an extremely uptight Spall as her father reading them out loud.

But scratch beneath the veneer of Wicked Little Letters' seemingly profane journey, and you'll find a story of societal tragedy.

From Edith's utter terror from her father's dominance in his house as he remonstrates against everything and everyone to Moss' frustration at her place as a woman police officer in a male-led environment and the subsequent prejudice, there's a social commentary going on here that's hard to ignore.

Yet most of the vicarious joys come from seeing the pairing of Colman's uptight God-fearing and darkly snobby woman pitched against Buckley's free-spirited honest immigrant. It's an odd couple story, a tale as old as time, a slight on gossip and malice in small towns, (and also social media tittle-tattle) given a fresh coat and tarted up for 2024.

From Colman's subtle facials, twitching at every salacious crumb that she overhears, delighted in the attention her situation has received through to Buckley's initially brash but gradually softening salt-of-the-earth mother, the two leads function excellently on the screen. Perhaps the only damp squib moment of the film is how Vasan's police officer suffers a little in amongst this boisterous triumvirate as she becomes confined to the sidelines and more part of a screwball detective spin-off.

Overall Wicked Little Letters coalesces into something that's a veritable crowd-pleasing affair, one that's simply deliciously told and pitch-perfectly executed.