Wicked Little Letters is an entertaining if surface-level new British comedy
An assortment of beloved British actors are put in a very unusual position in this UK comedy loosely based on a true story. Set in the 1920s in a small village, Edith, played by Olivia Colman, doesn’t think much of her new neighbour, a liberated young Irish woman called Rose, played by Jessie Buckley.
When Edith begins receiving obscene, insulting anonymous letters, Rose is accused and arrested. A local grudge becomes a national story, and a fight for one woman’s freedom.
Like fellow comedies The Duke or 2020’s Misbehaviour, much of the comedy is derived from establishment types gasping at people who dare to think differently.
Writer Isobel Waller-Bridge leans heavily into big sweary language, and for the most part that works, but it’s a far better film when it tries go deeper: scratching at the surface of the feud, looking at a class system on the brink of collapse and the people desperate to hold it together.
The ensemble is far better than the material they are given. Former Crown actor Colman gives a hilariously passive aggressive performance as the ultimate curtain twitcher who has some terrific battles with Buckley’s free-spirited mother. Timothy Spall fits right in as Edith’s father, with some comedy facial expressions.
The feature, which premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, is pleasurable, but beyond surface laughter there’s not much here.
Wicked Little Letters is in cinemas from 23 February.
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