“Wicked Little Letters” (2024) refers to anonymous, profanity-riddled letters being circulated throughout Littlehampton in the United Kingdom soon after World War I. Father Edward Swan (Timothy Spall) goes to the police when his adult daughter, Edith (Olivia Colman), receives her nineteenth letter, and everyone suspects the Swan’s neighbor, Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley), an Irish single mother whose husband died in the war. Guilty of scandalizing everyone by not acting like a proper lady, Rose gets arrested. Woman Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) is skeptical that Rose is the real culprit, but also offended at Rose’s conduct to reject Rose’s pleas for help. Will Moss find the real culprit or end up in the dock?
Fans of “The Lost Daughter” (2021) will be thrilled that Colman and Buckley finally get to share screen time together as opposed to the earlier project where they played a character at different stages in their life. “Wicked Little Letters” acts as a character study about women at the opposite end of the respectability spectrum. They start as friends until their relationship with societal expectations pit them against each other. The film is supposed to be a mystery, but anyone who has ever seen a movie or preview should guess the real culprit faster than the characters did. Once Moss enters the fray, the film delivers a cross section of quirky neighborhood woman to flesh out the rest of the spectrum.
Director Thea Colman, writer Jonny Sweet and Colman generously cast Edith in a sympathetic light when she could easily be the villain. In their hands, Edith becomes a person imprisoned like a child under her father’s tyranny, who has the mental disposition of a toddler determined to get his own way. Colman is deft at projecting flashes of thrilled excitement over Rose’s devil-may-care attitude. It has never occurred to this older woman that there was another way of living. When presented with the option, she hues closer to home and keeps trying to save Rose from her sinful ways until she finds furtive ways to rebel. She gets downright unlikeable as she wavers between trying to regain Rose’s favor to openly gloating over her neighbor’s misfortune. During the investigation, Colman’s acting choices are perfect as Edith utters a sanctimonious line, but delivers it with an annoyed tone.
Buckley does not have a heavy lift. Rose is an easier role to play as the life of the party. She is a loving mother to Nancy (Alisha Weir). She dates the guitar playing Bill (Malachi Kirby), a Black man, which is supposed to signal how cool she is. How does she afford a home adjacent to the Swans, but not bail? She works, but she is never depicted as someone who does. She is all fun or suffering, living it up or sitting quietly in a cell. She is also easier to relate to in the way that she calls out sexism and checks Edith’s father’s behavior. She is closer to the contemporary viewer in attitude and vernacular, especially because of her love for cursing, but she lacks flaws and is a bit two-dimensional. Even her worst sins are endearing. She is not tidy, diplomatic, or sensible. She is a loveable rascal.
Moss adds a little more verve to “Wicked Little Letters.” Her role is still an archetype, a daughter walking in her dad’s professional footsteps with the additional challenge of dealing with gender discrimination. Chief Constable Spedding (Paul Chahidi) is an interesting character because he initially appears to be entrenched in the good old boy’s network and perpetuating a system that benefits Moss’ lesser colleagues like Constable Papperwick (Hugh Skinner) but ends up being a savvy investigator who knows how to make charges stick. There seems to be real tension that Moss can get in trouble if she draws outside the lines of her limited job description. When Vasan gets an opportunity to interact with other actors like Joanna Scanlan, who was terrific in “After Love” (2020), who plays Ann, a single woman farmer with hygiene issues, they bring the movie to life because it is one of the few unpredictable aspects of the film. It strains suspension of disbelief that all of Edith’s friends would suddenly consider siding with Moss and become invested in Rose’s plight, but it is fun to see.
“Wicked Little Letters” got a serious demerit for pulling what I call the “Concussion” card: a Black character gets all the horrible lines that the majority was thinking about Rose and Edith so Black people get to be stigmatized as more biased, and the majority can assign the blame to the “other” without feeling personally condemned. In this case, it is Kate (Lolly Adefope), the local mailwoman, but Adefope is so funny, it is easy to overlook. Some may remember Adefope for her scene stealing role in “Saltburn” (2023) as Lady Daphne deriding her husband and children to an absolute stranger.
The portrait of Edward Swan is more complex and sinister than the average sexist dad. No loveable Archie Bunker here. Spall gets to play a nasty piece of work by alternating with faux concern framed as Christian humbleness to condemning any attention as encouraging licentiousness. Even when Spall does not utter a word, his looming presence of disapproval and incapacity for uttering a kind, meaningless exchange is conveyed.
If “Wicked Little Letters” has a flaw, it is its unwillingness to make Edith and Rose’s relationship irreconcilable. Solidarity in gender oppression is not a thing although it would be nice if it was. Rose is never permitted to stay angry at Edith, and she needed to be an angry woman for losing time, her reputation, and her daughter. Gender should not be equated with goodness so sometimes division can be a good thing. The real Rose was forever changed. A frying pan to the head is played as if it was cartoonish hijinks, not a potentially life-threatening moment. Comedies can be funny and realistic. The Brits usually have a real talent for tackling heavy issues and keeping it light, but this film made “Victoria & Abdul” (2017) seem comparatively hard hitting in the way that it approached issues.
In a film like “Wonka” (2023), which is supposed to be an amalgamation of different places and fantastical, it makes sense that a Black cop has a New York accent, but “Wicked Little Letters” had a plethora of Black people in positions of power. I love diversity, but wondered if it was accurate and made a mental note to do a quick fact check. I did not have to go further than IMDb. The first Black judge was appointed in 2004! Movies do not have to be realistic, even if it is based on a true story, but when they are not, it says something about the film and its creators.
“Wicked Little Letters” is aspirational, but ultimately too watered down to achieve what it wants, which is no more racism and sexism. Cool, same, but when Moss finally gets to wield cuffs, it sends the message of trust the process, there is no systematic racism or sexism, just a couple of bad apples. It frames evil acts as an aberration, a flaw, not a feature. Some people are never going to change, and they hold enough power to make life difficult because the process was created when they had the power. A film that makes them seem less threatening are not preparing its viewers for real opposition.