‘Wicked Little Letters’ Review — A deliciously profane romp

A review of the new comedy, in theaters now

Not all that long into Wicked Little Letters, the new comedy from director Thea Sharrock, I realized I was grinning. It’s such a joy to go into a movie with little to no expectations, only to realize that you’re in confident hands. In this case, all it took was a particular expression on Olivia Colman’s face — a particular mixture of disgust and delight — to assure me that this movie knows exactly what it wants to be.

Colman stars as Edith Swan, a woman in 1920s England who still lives at home with her parents. On the morning we join Edith, she’s just received a 19th letter in the mail… one so shocking, her father (Timothy Spall) alerts the police. Constable Papperwick (Hugh Skinner) opens the letter and begins to read, and out pours a string of profanity so surprising that the mother and child in the row ahead of me immediately stood up and fled the theater. “Dear Edith,” it begins, “you foxy-ass old whore…”

Edith is convinced that her next-door neighbor Rose (Jessie Buckley) is behind the twisted, sexual, shockingly-nasty letters. (“Edith sucks ten cocks a week, minimum!” reads one.) Rose is a single mum, newly-arrived in Littlehampton from “the Emerald Island.” She’s brash and free-spirited, everything the uptight…