Wicked Little Letters Review
Rambunctious, hilarious, crude, crass and surprising, Wicked Little Letters is a wicked little time in the cinema.
Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) is a foul-mouthed Irish woman in a small conservative town, living with her daughter after the death of her husband. She initially befriends the aged Edith Swan (Olivia Coleman), living still under her father Edward (Timothy Spall)’s roof. That is, until Edith starts received some wicked little letters, leading to Rose being accused of sending them. As more and more letters are received, Constable Papperwick (Hugh Skinner) arrests Rose; but Woman Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) doesn’t believe Rose is the culprit.
Wicked Little Letters is a blast of a film. It’s funny both in the crude sense (there are multiple expletive laden scenes that pack a punch), and in the smarter, more nuanced sense. The whole film has an air of fun and whimsy about it that makes you feel comfortable to not take it all too seriously - even if it is based on a true story!
That being said, the bad that befalls these characters - the jail cell, Timothy Spall’s appalling fatherhood - is truly wicked, and the sense of dread these events convey does hit home quite strongly irrespective of the irreverent tone of the broader piece.
Visually, Wicked Little Letters is a gorgeously shot period film, with plenty on offer for the cinematography lover in the family. It’s also well-paced and intriguingly structured, leaving you guessing until the two-thirds mark in a story that could have given away the goose early on.
The real standout here are the performances. Jessie Buckley and Olivia Coleman are two of the best actors working today, and to get to inhabit an on-screen world where they are playing against each other (Coleman in particular doling out a character quite significantly removed from some of her recent work in terms of temperament) is just a joy.
