In ‘Wicked Little Letters,’ the shock value feels about a century too late
Robert Abele March 30, 2024
Women everywhere have many reasons to curse a blue streak. Countless reasons. They
also
dont need excuses, because sometimes cursing is fun
.!
But if you need a movie to explain
thisboth situations
to you, over and over, like a potty
–
mouthed PSA for speaking ones mind, the breathless British period comedy Wicked Little Letters, starring Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley and directed by Thea Sharrock, is at the ready with its occasionally amusing but ultimately worn-to-the-bone joke.
The
filmother way this movie swears is by
decla
resing
up front, This is more true than youd thin
k
,
.
A a
nd indeed,
in during
the years after the
First
World War
I
, a poison
–
pen scandal in an English seaside town
made turned
filthy language into national news. Someones been sending ornately vicious, profanity-laced, unsigned missives (foxy-ass old whore is as nice as this newspaper can print) to the residents of Littlehampton, the brunt of them landing at the doorstep of pious spinster Edith Swan (Colman). While her poor mother (Gemma Jones) weeps and authoritarian father (Timothy Spall) sputters with rage
,
and the police drag their heels, Edith assumes the countenance of brave-faced, sympathy-slurping martyr in a worrisomely godless postwar society.
Of course
,
everyone knows who the sender must be
:–
Ediths next-door neighbor (and ex-friend) Rose Gooding (Buckley), a boisterous, barefoot, widowed Irish migrant and single mom who is eventually arrested and put on trial for libel with no evidence save her lower-class status and all-occasions
f-word
forwardness. (As Rose
rightly shrewdly
puts it to the authorities, Do I look like the anonymous type to you?) The situation doesnt sit well with police officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan), who must defy her chauvinistic colleagues to take matters into her own hands and see that justice is served.
Not that theres any real mystery to who the epistolary vulgarian is, despite Wicked Little Letters presuming there is until about halfway through, when Johnny Sweets sketch-thin screenplay turns toward ho-hum caper mechanics to nab the culprit. Its no spoiler to say hypocrisy is key to the crime, since the
film’s
cartoon
ishy
binary free-spiritedness good, repressi
onve mindsets
bad screams it from the beginning. The blessing is that Buckley, Colman, Spall, and Vasan are expert enough that
the building blocks of
dimensional character work still peek
s
through the
haphazard
vibe of
one-note personality humor and
cookie-cutter idiosyncrasy.
Even in a role thats more like a big Irish wink, Buckley
s energy
is always watchable, although you half expect her expletive-thick lines to lead right into a bawdy musical number. But its Colmans virtuosity with facial nuances
that is,
when the camera holds on her long enough to get them that hint at the more fascinating, thornier, Jamesian character study to be explored
: a self-deluderfrom so deluded and put-upon a well-intentioned woman,
fractured by misogyny both open and internalized.
Its all briskly paced, benefiting from suitably evocative sets, costumes
,
and the bit-part bite of Eileen Atkins (as one of Ediths friends). But
what galls is that
Sharrocks approach is
so
frustratingly compartmentalized, set on keeping the wacky
part
wacky and the serious
part
serious. Theres also misplaced trust in the
bottomless
entertainment value of squeezing every ounce of shock from
whats in
the letters (such language!), while counting on knowing nods about what the key message is (female emancipation!).
Not unlike the genre of
cozy/
naughty village quirk that gave us Calendar Girls, Wicked Little Letters
can be is
benignly enjoyable in its
unmodulated
take on a true story of hidden feelings, farcical expression
,
and righteous action. But considering the zesty elements in play, its a shame were
so
far removed from the heyday of
Britain’s
Ealing Studios
,
and
its
oddball comedies like Passport to Pimlico, Whiskey Galore and The Ladykillers
,
in which– when
eccentricity, the authenticity of human pluck
,
and spiteful black humor were more smoothly brewed.
