by Len Weiler
What a treat it is to watch two of our best actresses, Olivia Coleman and Jessie Buckley, do battle in the new British comedy-drama,
Wicked Little Letters! Yes, they both appeared in 2021’s
The Lost Daughter, but there, playing the same character at different ages, they had no scenes together. Here, they are antagonists – and very distinctly different sorts of people. Both give shining performances.
The film is based on an incredible true story about a scandal that rocked the parochial little UK seaside town of Littlehampton in the early 1920s. What happened resembles an extreme case of what we now call trolling, excepting that in this instance – in the absence of social media - the harassment was conducted by a flurry of profane, hand-written letters sent by post, rather than via tweets and other such digital postings; and further excepting that, unlike today, back in that era there was a broadly accepted understanding about the impropriety of such tawdry and malicious behavior, which made “poison pen letters” a rare occurrence. (Yet apparently frequent enough that there was a commonly understood name for it.) In any event, the Littlehampton Letters Scandal drew national attention for a time. Initially, it was the obscene contents of the libelous letters that seemed shocking and titillating to the reading public; but when it was revealed sometime later that false testimony in the first court proceeding had resulted in a wrongful conviction and a miscarriage of justice, there was a public outcry once again
Wicked Little Letters is set at the same time and in the same town. Coleman plays the recipient of the vulgar letters, Edith Swan. Like the real Ms. Swan, Coleman’s Edith is a repressed, middle-aged, middle-class spinster, still living with her pious parents – Edward, her irascible, controlling father (Timothy Spall) and her very proper mother, aptly named Victoria (Gemma Jones). Buckley plays their newly arrived next door neighbor, Rose Gooding – a free spirited, uncouth, much younger Irish-born woman. Rose is unmarried; her husband, she says, died in the World War. She lives with her young daughter Nancy (Alisha Weir) and with her boyfriend Bill (Malachi Kirby).
The movie is being marketed as a rip-roaring comedy. One poster proclaims it’s “Fantastically Funny!”, “A Hoot!” and “Wickedly Entertaining”. The trailers proclaim that
Wicked Little Letters is “Gloriously Profane”, “The British Comedy of the Year” and “Funny as F***”. And there’s no denying that the movie IS often quite comedic - sometimes screwball, other times droll, and much in between. First off, there is the truly glorious profanity of the letters [samples upcoming shortly]. Competing with this are numerous other comic examples of colorful cussing, especially by the otherwise upright Edward and the regularly outspoken Rose. Secondary characters in the film too may evoke a smile or even a chuckle simply because of their quaint, unsophisticated remarks about the situation. But there’s also a not inconsiderable dark side to the narrative, much of which mirrors the century-old true story. It’s a comedy, but with dramatic bones.
The film begins as Edith receives another poison pen letter, the 19th one, we are told. Outraged, Edward immediately dashes off to the police station demanding action: “
You better do something about it, before there’s a hurley-baloo!” he fulminates. Young, but none-too-bright Constable Papperwick (Hugh Skinner) trots behind Edward back to the Swans’ residence, where Edward insists on giving him a dramatic reading of the offending material. [As noted, the letters are quite vulgar, so if you are under the age of 12, or fearful of being offended, you should probably skip the rest of this paragraph.] Edward reads aloud in a stentorian voice that would do Shakespeare proud:
“Dear Edith, you fucksy-ass old whore. You really are a tricksy old fuck,” goes one letter.
“Edith Swan takes it up the swanie, and she loves it more than Christmas day,” declares another.
There are more, but you get the gist. Watching Spall perform this bit, I wished that the actor had paused a bit more between letters, like a good comedian would, to let the audience laughter die down. [Incidentally, the obscenity-laced letters we hear in the movie are real – taken directly from the original articles.]
Papperwick asks who might be responsible. Edward, speaking on his daughter Edith’s behalf (she’s just a woman, after all) declares that it’s surely their neighbor, the foulmouthed Rose. “
She curses like a fish and has got scraggly hair all the time. And she marches around on the Sabbath with feet as bare as goose eggs!” Circumstantial evidence to be sure, but plenty enough for Papperwick to arrest Rose. He finds her at the local pub, rowdy, the center of attention, beer mug in one hand, a dart in the other in a classic William tell moment.
Soon, however, she finds herself in a jail cell, charged with criminal libel. Although Rose denies the charges, the judge sets her case for trial several months hence and remands her to jail until then, as she has no money to post bail. She is Irish, after all. The police see no need for further investigation. “Everyone knows it’s her – ever since she got off that boat,” says the chief constable. Well – not quite everyone. Woman Police Officer Gladys Moss (that’s her actual title), senses that the case is not so open and shut. But as the chief has no interest in what a Woman Police Officer has to say, it doesn’t look good.
That’s more than enough to give you a general sense of the narrative; but
Wicked Little Letters is as much or more about the characters as it is about the quirky, dramatic story and its satirical look at themes of false piety, and class or gender prejudice. And it’s with these characters where the film really shines, thanks to a sterling group of supporting actors like Anjana Vasan as the disrespected but persevering Gladys, Gemma Jones as Victoria (Edith’s browbeaten mother), veterans Eileen Atkins, Joanna Scanlan and Lolly Adefope as some of Rose’s friends who step up and go to bat for her, and, of course Timothy Spall as pompous Edward (Edith’s dad).
But it’s Coleman and Buckley, fully inhabiting and enlivening their opposite characters, that carry the film - Coleman doing her trademark hesitant, self-effacing bit as the outwardly pious, unhappily repressed and dour Edith, and Buckley, whose sparkling, life-affirming performance as Rose ranges from wildly and profanely outspoken to quietly maternal, loving and, come what may, always honest. It was Coleman, also a producer of the picture, who sent the script to Buckley. “I just wanted us to work together … and also, I realized there was no one who would have been better at swearing in this way than Jessie.” Says Buckley, “It was really a no brainer [to take on the part]. I thought it was such a tonic. … These women were just like the kind of women I know in my life who are really desperately trying to be able to say the things that they're not meant to say and then have no other way to keep it in.”
Wicked Little Letters is not perfect. The tale sags a bit here and there, and the delicate balance between drama and humor is occasionally lost. Also, I had some trouble catching every word of the dialogue. In certain indoor scenes, it seemed to me that the voice recording had a slight echo effect, and that - along with the parochial British dialect of most of the characters, got in my way. Then too, Timothy Spall is a known mumbler. In any case, these are minor quibbles about an otherwise fine film.
In sum, Wicked Little Letters is a charming, funny movie with an entertaining blend of heart and humor. And as I said at the outset, it features wonderful acting by two great actresses that’s definitely worth seeing. It’s not one of the greats that you absolutely must rush out for, but it is certainly fun and diverting. So you may want to check it out.
1 hour 40 minutes
Grade: B+
Now playing in New York City and L.A.; In theaters nationwide beginning April 5, 2024, including more than twenty theaters throughout Northern California, including San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, San Jose, Santa Rosa, Sacramento and more. Click HERE to find a theater near you. No streaming date has yet been announced.
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