3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Wicked Little Letters

2023, Thea Sharrock (Me Before You) -- download

The click click click will always, eventually, cycle round to a "semi-historical British comedy". Sometimes they are "feel good" movies, sometimes they are just there to make you chuckle or ponder some social injustice. This particular movie concerns the concept of a "poison pen letter", a turn of the 20th century concept that apparently took hold in the US and UK, enough that laws had to be enacted. Essentially people were writing, by hand or by typewriter, really nasty letters to other people, slanderous and hurtful, always anonymous, purely for the... fun of it?

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In the 20s in Littlehampton, UK, someone is writing letters to devout spinster Edith Swan (Olivia Colman, The Bear): naughty things full of profanity and sexual innuendo. There have been 19 by the time the movie gets underway. Of course, she talks to the police and sits the blame squarely on her less than devout neighbour Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley, I'm Thinking of Ending Things): a single mother, recently from Ireland, after her husband died in the war. Rose is a good target, for she drinks, is rowdy, has a really foul mouth, and is shacked up with (gasp!) a black man.

The police are less than diligent with their investigation and arrest Rose. Woman Police Constable Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan, We Are Lady Parts) sees things don't sit quite right, but being the region's only female police officer, nobody listens to her. So, secretly she begins a real investigation, during which we, the viewers, get to see that it is Edith herself penning the poison letters, in a rather neurotic response to her domineering father's control of her life.  

Its always good fun watching Olivia Colman act all devilish, especially once you eventually hear the torrent of ill used profanity spill forth from her mouth. Rose ends up being rather impressed, but disappointed considering much of Edith's slurs don't make much sense. Rose knows how to swear, proper like. I wouldn't say anything about this movie is incredibly novel, after all its a formula we are seeking to satisfy a craving, but the performances and pacing were all solid.