Sometimes, you can’t decide whether you want to borrow a cup of sugar from the neighbor … or send her up the river for life instead. Goodness gracious …. decisions, decisions. Well, hey, what is being a ‘good neighbor” anyway? If she’s gonna send you ugly, threatening hate mail, it’s only right that you get the police involved, yes?
The film begins at the 19th letter addressed to Edith Swan (Olivia Colman), an ultra-pious Christian old maid. She should have been a nun. The letters are explicit hand-written threats with … salty language added for fun. Cursing in cursive is … not unheard of, but kinda funny, especially given the era of post-WWI England. It’s funny how antiquated and foreign this setting feels, and yet, how are vile and profane letters any different from modern trolling? You got a problem, dude, and you’re expressing it … poorly. True then. True now.
Without proof, Edith blames her very blue-collar Irish immigrant neighbor, Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley). And why not Rose? She swears like a sailor up for a profanity medal. Well, hey, sure her precocious child will be an orphan while she’s gone, but geez, Rose, then you shouldn’t have written those letters, huh? Rose does have a partner, Bill, who will see to the kid while mom is in jail for a few months awaiting trial.
Littlehampton is a strangely integrated town for England in 1920, btw. I’m always curious when cultures seek to un-whitewash their history. You want to put a bunch of non-white people in your movie about 1920 England? Be my guest. But you also want to insist that rampant sexism exists at this place/time while rampant racism does not. Hmmm … see, that’s where I draw the line. The film hence pretends that the only reason “Police Woman Constable” Moss (part of a longer title she’s required to introduce herself with) isn’t assigned detective work because she’s new and possibly because she’s a woman, and not at all because Moss (Anjana Vasan) is of Indian heritage. Ummm, ok.
Wicked Little Letters has a lot of fun with language, whether it is having stuffy old birds swear out the wazoo or having Police Woman Constable Moss humiliate her simpleton (yet higher ranking) co-workers. This is where the film is fun before reminding us that a little girl who has a caring mother could become a ward of the state if the miscarriage of justice -a likely outcome- is allowed.
This is one of those “specific point in time” films. You need a venue where letter writing is common and the post office is relatively efficient, yet at the same time a careless era where handwriting is only graded, never analyzed.
In addition, Wicked Little Letters is a female-heavy film. The men in it range from “endearing” to “monster,” although most are played as incompetent doofs. It is entirely fitting that this film coinc
ides with the suffrage movement in the UK. Here are some quality examples of why women are just as unqualified as men to vote on issues. Seriously, I love the work done here by the entire cast, but especially Colman, Buckley, and Vasan.
The biggest problem with Wicked Little Letters is that it doesn’t quite know whether it should be a comedy or a drama. And maybe that’s correct; in essence, the subject is the crime of a puerile and non-sensical cowardice. If not taken seriously, the words are whimsical and the threats are being made by one who almost certainly lacks the ability to confront in person. OTOH, nobody takes a bomb threat as a joke, even though most are. Threatening mail is never a good idea and it speaks to the troubled mind of an author in pain. These things are almost certainly a cry for help executed in offensive and frequently illegal fashion.
Hence, the material had to balance both whimsical and serious. OK, so while I understand that dichotomy, it still Wicked Little Letters a tad schizophrenic.
There was once a crude mother named Rose
Not known for her delicate prose
But to charge her with libel?!
You’re out of your bible
Crude ain’t sociopathic, heaven knows
Rated R, 107 Minutes
Director: Thea Sharrock
Writer: Jonny Sweet
Genre: Bad penmanship
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who like hearing prudes swear
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Prudes
