Nothing can disguise the joy with which Olivia Coleman spits forth her fair share of foul language in Wicked Little Letters. A notoriously messy mouth opened out. Surprisingly, Thea Shamrock, the director of Me Before You,’s new British comedy is based entirely on true events. Despite being written by comedian Jonny Sweet, the crude language is taken from letters written with poison pens in Littlehampton in the 1920s. It would be similar to a “foxy ass” version of Downton Abbey if Lady Grantham had occasionally f**ked during high tea.
Littlehampton was rocked by the incident,
which one Daily Mail editorial dubbed “the seaside mystery.” Residents of the area began receiving filthy letters and a barrage of handwritten, increasingly vulgar insults for months. The majority of the messages stained Edith Swan’s door mat, even though many people in the town were victims (Coleman).
Edith is a devout and imperiously upright person who lives under the control of her menacing father (the terrifying Timothy Spall) and her bashful mother (Gemma Jones). Despite having gone very near once, she is the only sibling not to have flown the nest. Rose Gooding, Edith’s complete opposite and Jessie Buckley’s wild turn, lives next door. Her mouth is as coarse as her dirty kitchen floor, an Irish motormouth. The town’s police department only needs five minutes to pin the blame on her. We figure out the truth in a mere two minutes longer.
Only WPO Gladys Moss, an incredibly expressive Anjana Vasan, can detect a plot twist. The proof is scant and mostly based on her habit of uttering expletives in public. Rose’s handwriting differs greatly from the poison pen’s, to start with. Secondly, it is incomprehensible that the outspoken Rose would see any benefit in making her outbursts anonymous, asking herself, “Why would I write it when I can just say it?” In addition, Rose has the minor concern that she must always follow the law in order to protect Nancy, her young daughter (Alisha Weir from Matilda). She would lose both her freedom and mother custody after a year of arduous effort.
A backdrop that is intensely conscious of the ongoing fight for women’s suffrage coexists with the obvious racial bigotry. At the very least, her father defends Edith as the complete opposite of women’s liberation. Even if Rose tried, it would be difficult to seem less like she took a star turn to get to Littlehampton in Sarah Gavron’s Sufragette. Edith replies, “She’s what we feared would come after the war.” Rose confronts an establishment that is ill-equipped to deal with a post-war world that differs greatly from the one that existed before. Not at all. Expectations of feminine virtue meant much less when women were needed in the munition industries, as Mabel, the unhappy character played by Eileen Atkins, points out.
This is not to say that, despite its current resonance, Wicked Little Liars is linked to scathing social criticism. The movie lacks the conviction to carry that through. Similar criticism can be directed against the film’s shaky use of tone. What quickly, although not very convincingly, enters the Agatha Christie realms moves between courtroom drama and the kitchen sink. Scenes of high farce are more gratifying, especially when a capering war of wits emerges. In these situations, Shamrock seems to be having the most infectious fun.
Even if the cake appears to have “fallen out of some f***ing sheep’s f***ing arsehole,” Wicked Little Letters lacks the dramatic tension that would have allowed it to work its way through a diaphragm of absurdity. Although Coleman and Buckley are outstanding, the performance isn’t quite up to par overall.