I had my reservations about this latest British “based on a true scandal” movie, the tale of a prim woman in a small town being tormented by poison-pen letters of the most foul kind. Mobsters swearing in a Martin Scorsese movie I can accept, but esteemed British thespians effing and blinding for shock value? That doesn’t amuse me at all.
Thankfully, the jarring effect of hearing a bonneted Gemma Jones (Sense and Sensibility) and a sputtering Timothy Spall read aloud the floridly cruel curses soon wears off in this lightly amusing crime caper based on a real-life case from 1920.
It helps that Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley star as the beleaguered spinster Edith and the accused letter-writer Rose, respectively, two actresses who bring heft to even the silliest of stories.
Post-World War I, grown-up daughter Edith is still living at the suffocating home of her elderly parents in Littlehampton, West Sussex. Out of the blue, Edith starts receiving anonymous letters attacking her in unspeakably crude language, which she intuits are being sent by her uncouth Irish neighbour, Rose, with whom she’s had a falling out.
When her enraged father (Spall) insists on involving the bumbling local police, Edith plays the forgiving Christian woman with wide-eyed piety – but secretly she’s chuffed about all the tabloid attention that ensues. “It’s quite a humbling experience,” she simpers disingenuously.
The gossipy small-town treatment of the Irish ne’er do well (Rose is a drinker and a single mum!) and sexist attitude towards “Woman Police Officer Gladys Moss” (an excellent Anjana Vasan) is an on-the-nose warning to not judge a book by its cover.
But director Thea Sharrock, who made the awkward disability romance Me Before You, is more focused on delivering broad comic characterisations than a moral to the story.
As always, Colman is hilarious with her wonderfully expressive face – her Edith is hilariously described by one newspaper as “grim-looking and by no means conventionally charming” – and Buckley’s feisty underdog is easy to root for.
The trouble is viewers unperturbed by the spicy dialogue may be looking for an edgier story, while those after a straightforward G-rated good time at the cinema may find themselves reaching for the smelling salts.
Rating out of 5: ★★★
Wicked Little Letters, directed by Thea Sharrock, is in cinemas now.
