You had me at Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley. Director Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters marks the excellent actresses’ second collaboration–the first being The Lost Daughter. Though the film never entirely lives up to its full promise, it delights nonetheless and features divine performances from both its stars and the rest of the impressive Brit-pack ensemble.
Based on a truly bizarre real-life story, the film follows the goings on Littlehampton–a small English seaside town–when religious spinster Edith Swan begins to receive filthy, crude and insulting poison pen letters. Her devout parents are beside themselves, particularly her strict and cold father Edward (played with all due dourness by stalwart Timothy Spall). The repressed family holds free-spirited neighbour, single mother, and Irish immigrant Rose Gooding responsible for the hate mail and report her to the local constabulary. She may be known for swearing like a sailor but does that mean she’s the culprit? On the case is Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan), who fights everyday racism and misogyny to look deeper into the events in question with a tenacity that her Chief Constable finds problematic. Unsurprisingly, her boss would prefer to listen to her inept but well-meaning white male colleague (Hugh Skinner) instead. Despite the many obstacles in her way, Moss’s thorough investigation reveals a tale of friendship, betrayal, judgement, community, and dreams of independence.
The script, by Jonny Sweet (Greed), is tight and witty, with layers of social commentary and satire that make both lighter and darker moments hit equally well. That said, Wicked Little Letters soars when is shifts focus from “who” would write these horrid missives to “why”. When positioning itself as a who-dunnit, it’s an entertaining and cheeky Agatha Christie knock-off. But when morphing into a witty and pointed character study of how societal expectations and limitations harm all women regardless of circumstance, it really packs a punch.
Unfortunately, the points deftly made by Sharrock and Sweet–and delivered with aplomb by a capable cast–are still as relevant today as it was in the 1920s. The supportive community of women Constable Moss discovers (Joanna Scalan, Lolly Adefope, and Dame Eileen Atkins) is particularly delightful to observe. The group could be labelled local busybodies, but that would diminish their chutzpah and resourcefulness. Each of the women use their impressive talents to work alongside Moss to uncover evidence, to encourage her investigation, and to lay a trap to catch the culprit.
It will come as no surprise that the real delight of the film is watching Colman and Buckley face off. Their scenes are fairly popping with energy, and both appear to be having a whale of a time digging in to their characters and this nippy script. That’s not to say there aren’t more serious moments from both, and the two are equally adept in exploring those more subtle layers of emotion. They make it truly hard not to root equally for both to come out on top by the time the credits finally roll. That the film keeps audience interest piqued even in scenes without the powerhouse stars is a testament to Sharrock and the stellar supporting ensemble.
Ultimately, Wicked Little Letters cleverly uses a particularly wacky, forgotten English scandal to call out the ridiculousness of societal expectations and judgements of women and their individuality–both historically and contemporarily. Where it loses it’s focus is in the telling of the less interesting mystery. But luckily for audiences, it spends far more time exploring the former than the latter. And if you think you might get a kick out of some truly creative expletive usage, well that’s just a bonus.
Wicked Little Letters premiered at TIFF 2024 and is now out in select theatres.
