Wicked Little Letters Review

Wicked Little Letters is a mystery film about the case of the Littlehampton letters and assembles an ensemble cast for a boisterous comedy.

Edith Swann (Olivia Colman) is a Christian woman who has been receiving poison pen letters. The prime suspect is her next-door neighbour, Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley), an Irish woman with no filter. The police believe it to be a simple case, but the only female officer on the force, Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan), thinks an innocent woman has been arrested and sets out to find the real culprit.

Wicked Little Letters was a film brimming with talent. The cast features Academy Award winner Olivia Colman, Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley, Timothy Spall, and We Are Lady Parts’ Anjana Vasan in the main cast, while the supporting cast had veterans like Eileen Atkins and Gemma Jones, Ghosts’ Lolly Adefope, and the child star of Matilda the Musical’s Alisha Weir. This cast should be enough to incite British and Irish audiences and hopefully they will give Wicked Little Letters some appeal to international audiences.

This cast doesn’t disappoint. Buckley was clearly having fun being a woman who could creatively swear and say whatever was on her mind. Buckley was a more comedic version of her character in Wild Rose. Colman’s performance was a more subtle performance as a quiet Christian who made more witty remarks. Colman wasn’t potty mouth like Buckley. Colman has always been brilliant in her roles and her performance in Wicked Little Letters was no exception. Vasan completed the trio of women. As WPC Moss she was marginalised within the police force, yet showed herself to be a capable investigator and she was able to give some verbal jabs against a fellow officer. Vasan had expressive eyes and she used them to great effect.

Wicked Little Letters was directed by Thea Sharrock, a theatre director turned film director. She’s best known for Me Before You. Sharrock brought prestige to the film. Littlehampton was shown to be a picturesque English town, with the street that Edith and Rose lived on having a chocolate box look. The film was accurately shot in Worthing and Arundel. However, the picture-perfect look hid the fact that the Swann house was a dark home where light couldn’t penetrate and Edith and Rose had to share some facilities.

Whilst Wicked Little Letters had the look and cast of a prestige film, it was a low-brow comedy. Much of the comedy derives from the colourful language and it was a film that showed one character getting hit in the face with a toilet brush and another with a bit of flatulence. The cast was able to elevate the material. Wicked Little Letter was shown as an Odeon Unseen screening and the audience I was with enjoyed it. There were no walkouts. I laughed and chuckled quite a bit during the film, at the more adult material and the witty jabs.

As well as being a broad comedy, Wicked Little Letters wanted to be a thematic film. The central idea of the film was about women fighting against the patriarchy. The three main characters suffered at the hands of men. Edith’s father, Edward (Timothy Spall) was a dominating father who told his daughter what to do and spoke for her. He held Edith back, both academically and physically, and she acted out in unusual ways.  WPC Moss was seen as the token woman of the police force whose role was to handle women’s crimes and hysteria. Her colleagues didn’t see her as a real copper and she overheard the sexist and misogynist comments from her superiors. Moss also said that because of her job she wasn’t allowed to get married or have children. Even Rose wasn’t immune. She was looked down on because she wasn’t ladylike. Because of this experience, Rose tried to teach her daughter, Nancy (Weir) to be ladylike and that meant taking away one of Nancy’s passions since girls were not meant to play the guitar.

One character pointed out that women kept Britain running during the Great War but were expected to return to their traditional role when the conflict ended. Wicked Little Letters ended up being a story about women taking control of their destiny. WPC Moss was able to form a team to prove Rose’s innocence, whilst Rose was also able to make her own deductions. Even Edith looked to take control of her life even if her methods were unhealthy.

Wicked Little Letters was a hilarious British comedy that aimed to be a film with substance. It was a crowd-pleaser and managed to be raunchy and quaintly British in equal measure.