“Wicked Little Letters” (2024)
“This is more true than you think”.
I rarely read or listen to reviews prior to watching a new film but living in the UK and the trumpeted “British Comedy of the Year” (Deadline) I’d read and heard a lot prior to watching director Thea Sharrock’s third all time feature length release and it almost lived up to its pre-watch billing. What I hadn’t truly accounted for was how close to home the film would turn out to be (set in the seaside town of Littlehampton and just a short drive along the coast from my home city of Portsmouth with the city’s now closed prison also named within the film) and that this wicked little British film is also based upon a wicked true life tale of envy and jealousy, deceit and class bigotry.
Set in 1920 with the ghosts and ramifications of the Great War hanging in the air we are introduced to a vast and varying colourful cast of characters inhabited brilliantly by Timothy Spall as an angry and particularly cantankerous father, Anjana Vasan as a sweet but tough natured young police constable on the trail of the writer of the titular wicked letters and Hugh Skinner as a quirky, overbearing fellow constable living, and more than comedically unwittingly, in the shadow of his younger colleague.
But “Wicked Little Letters” is dominated by a prolific writer of poison pen letters and a distressed recipient shot through the prism of resentment and guilt, repressed anger and a desire to be free. But who is the caged bird and who enjoys writing EXTREMELY funny letters full of every swear word imaginable?
“Edith Swan” (Olivia Colman) Olivia first came to my cinematic appreciation in the Paddy Considine directed “Tyrannosaur” in 2011 and a performance worthy of the Oscar she won seven years later as Queen Anne in Yorgos Lanthimos’ beautifully and strangely quirky “The Favourite”. I loved Olivia in 2022’s “Empire of Light” (directed by Sam Mendes) and I love her performance here as the recipient of some of the funniest letters you’ll ever hear read aloud full to overflowing with every and any swear word you probably won’t find in any dictionary! Pious, uptight and upright lady of her local community and “missionary” for her polar opposite, former friend and next door neighbour. Timid and quiet, hesitant and crowded by the presence of an overbearing father, Edith receives her 19th wicked letter and someone becomes instantly guilty until proven innocent.
“Rose Gooding” (Jessie Buckley) Arguably the star of a very good show but rather than give any further character observation other than Rose is as rudely outspoken as are the growing number of poisonous letters arriving in this quaint seaside town, can I recommend a hat-trick of performances in three must-see films? If you’ll indulge me, Jessie outshines her male namesake Jesse Plemons in a typically surreal ride from Charlie Kaufman in 2020’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” before the following year astounding in Alex Garland’s horribly brilliant psychological horror “Men” and more of a backseat supporting role in the multi Oscar nominated “Women Talking”.
Treat yourself to a trip to post World War 1 Littlehampton where the wicked letters arrive in far, far more venomous form than “You mangy old titler’s turnip” and equally as laugh out loud funny. The use of the English language and yes, even the repeated language that would make a drunken sailor blush, is utterly, utterly glorious.
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