Wicked Little Letters
In an age of online trolling, moral outrage and naughty words seem somewhat passé in Thea Sharrock’s cosy, misjudged period fable.
Sticks and stones: Olivia Colman and Gemma Jones
Once upon a time, letter writing was not only an art form but an everyday activity. It’s how people communicated over long distances before technology connected us all and made calligraphy and joined-up thought redundant. In a related context, there is a condition called erotographomania, a form of which – the writing of obscene letters – exploded into a cause célèbre in the quiet seaside community of Littlehampton in West Sussex, when, in the 1920s, correspondence of some abominable content began arriving at the door of the God-fearing spinster Edith Swan (Olivia Colman). As upsetting to Edith as to her parents (Timothy Spall, Gemma Jones), the letters would seem to originate from the Swans’ next-door-neighbour, a loose cannon and single mother called Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) who was never afraid to speak her mind and turned the air blue with her choice of language.
The words inscribed within Edith’s unwelcome missives were of a scabrous nature, offensive even to the hardened sensibility of a sailor. Today such language is commonplace in all forms of media, which makes the outrage bottled in this mundane comedy-drama seem rather quaint. When positioned with precision, a swear word can exert some power, but in the hand of the Littlehampton suspect they appeared little more than the vivid bile of an untamed schoolboy. Time was, long before the advent of Noel Gallagher and Shane MacGowan, an off-colour verb would guarantee a film an X certificate. Here, there are veritable streams of ‘adult’ verbosity, becoming the very raison d'être of this odd little 15-rated film.
The 1920s’ period, setting, costumes – even the choice of actors – might convey the world of a cosy Miss Marple whodunit, or in this case, a whowroteit. To watch Dame Eileen Atkins drop the ‘f’ bomb may tickle the humerus of some older audience members, but it’s really very old hat. Far more outrageous than the moral hypocrisy is the sexism displayed towards the female police officer, Gladys Moss, who steals a march on her male colleagues. It’s odd, then, that the film’s indignancy at the small-minded prejudice of this forgotten corner of England should completely ignore the racism of the time, brushed aside in the name of colour tokenism. Because not only is Officer Moss a woman (nicely underplayed by Anjana Vasan), but a woman of colour. Likewise, Rose’s boyfriend is black, as is the post mistress and even the judge presiding over Rose’s trial. A more rounded condemnation of early twentieth century bigotry would have been to highlight the racism, not to completely ignore it.
These gripes aside, the caricatures that abound, from Edith’s Bible-bashing (and frequently foul-mouthed) martinet of a father (Spall), to Hugh Skinner’s blithering, two-faced copper, hardly add to the film’s credibility. Olivia Colman does her best to rein in Edith’s pious speciousness, but even she is privy to scene-stealing reaction shots, leaving the film’s funniest line to Joanna Scanlan’s unwashed chicken breeder (“my hygiene habits are alarming even to me”). In a nest of such self-righteous eccentrics, only Jessie Buckley’s free-spirited Rose – who is never averse to speaking her mind – is a character that we can believe in and feel empathy for. Ms Buckley has proved herself to be a remarkably versatile actress, but if there’s any previous character that she has played on screen like Rose, it is the eponymous Wild Rose, both in name and personality.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Joanna Scanlan, Gemma Jones, Malachi Kirby, Lolly Adefope, Eileen Atkins, Timothy Spall, Hugh Skinner, Paul Chahidi, Jason Watkins, Alisha Weir, Richard Goulding.
Dir Thea Sharrock, Pro Graham Broadbent, Peter Czernin, Ed Sinclair, Olivia Colman and Jo Wallett, Screenplay Jonny Sweet, Ph Ben Davis, Pro Des Cristina Casali, Ed Melanie Oliver, Music Isobel Waller-Bridge, Costumes Charlotte Walter, Dialect coach Jessica Hammett.
Film4/Blueprint Pictures/South of the River Pictures/People Person Pictures-StudioCanal.
100 mins. UK/France. 2023. UK Rel: 23 February 2024. US Rel: 29 March 2024. Cert. 15.
