Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters
Wicked Little Letters is a solid, frequently humorous, occasionally touching affair focused on the nebulously strict, religious-inspired patriarchal order of the interwar period in a seaside town in England. The film stars Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman as Rose Gooding and Edith Swan, a pair of women of opposite manners and juxtaposed social standing navigating the legal fallout of a short-lived friendship. Well-mannered devout Christian spinster Edith is among a rash of Littlehampton townsfolk getting abusive and offensive letters of unknown origin. Rose, an Irish immigrant who came to England after her husband died in the first World War, becomes the scapegoat for the criminal scandal because of her inauspicious reputation.
What did Rose do to earn this reputation? She’s from Ireland and is of less than exquisite manners. She’s unmarried and cohabitating with Bill (Malachi Kirby), with whom she raises her daughter Nancy (Alisha Weir). She is kind and friendly, but she isn’t nice and she doesn’t take people’s shit, which is just not the order of the day or the expectations of the environment. Rose goes to bars and sings and dances, and her short-lived friendship with Edith imploded after she refused to put up with chauvinistic condescension and insult by Edith’s father Edward (Timothy Spall) and his friends. So, Rose is arrested for the film’s titular letters based on lazy suspicion while Edith becomes a bit of a local celebrity because of her upstanding reputation. Woman Police Officer Gladys Moss (played by Anjana Vasan) is uncertain she’s done it but gets little help or attention from Constable Papperwick (Hugh Skinner) and Chief Constable Spedding (Paul Chahidi). Edith and Rose’s mutual friends Ann (Joanna Scanlan) and Mabel (Eileen Atkins) bail Rose out, then Gladys’s investigation leads her to work with the members of Edith’s Christian Women’s whist game to find the real culprit.
At the same time, we are reminded frequently of Edith’s strange place in life – her father sent away a man she might have married, and he maintains an archaic-feeling sense of propriety within his home, his honor tied to the prim and upright behavior of the only of his children not to have moved away. Edith and her mother, Victoria (Gemma Jones), are completely subject to his whims. There is an unspoken threat of violence, the domineering air of a sniveling and unhappy man thick enough to coat the walls of his home. In one moment of anger, he quakes about being the head of house and the captain of the ship, as if his life outside his home is a constant reminder of his internal inadequateness. How odd that his insecurity creates problems for the rest of the seaside hamlet. His cloistering seems especially intense for Edith, whose suppressed emotion bubbles out, it is revealed, into the cruel and silly-sounding letters she has sent all over town. Edith’s mother receives a letter so shocking she dies of a heart attack. Signing the witness form, Edith accidentally reveals to Moss that her handwriting is the same as that within the letters.
Moss gets kicked off the case that has become a national sensation because her boss wants a clean and quiet resolution that doesn’t involve much thinking. She and Ann investigate Edith, giving Rose’s defense attorney evidence to fluster Edith at the trial. In this series of courtroom scenes, the character of the respective women is almost more important than any evidence. Edith is purported to be unable to even read aloud the wicked little letters because she is so devoutly Christian and morally upstanding. Meanwhile, the prosecuting attorney discovered that Rose was never married and that Nancy was born out of wedlock, creating a wedge in Rose’s home life. Her daughter is upset because she feels her own reputation may have been harmed and her mother is of low standing; Bill is upset because she didn’t trust them. In the end, Moss, Ann, Mabel, and Lolly Adefope’s Kate – who comes around during the trial – spring a trap for Edith, securing Rose’s freedom.
One thing I like about the movie is that it does not call itself “based on a true story” exactly, rather beginning with a note that “This is more true than you’d think,” therefore lowering the expectations of strict adaptation of history. The changes from what really happened are therefore less offensive, though I remain mixed in my feelings about colorblind casting of historical characters. In a play it makes sense to me, but it creates a layer of unreality, especially when part of the story focuses on real bigotries and oppression (in this film, mainly sexism with some allusions to class) while waving away others that were as prevalent at the time. For instance, the presiding judge in Rose’s case is a black man in the film, as is her boyfriend; in real life, the first black British judge wasn’t appointed until 1962. The real life Gladys Moss was the first female police officer in Sussex in 1919, but the UK didn’t get their first Asian female officer, Karpal Kaur Sandhu, until 1971. Though I don’t know for sure, I can’t help but wonder if there is some measure of exculpating the audience as well as the society depicted in the film by bending reality around contemporary progressive mores. However, I do not think it is as cynical as when big budget pictures use tertiary inclusivity as part of their marketing.
This feels a more personal film, and arguably a more important one considering it’s dealing with historical facts and figures. But, maybe less self-important? The score and the sound cues allow for a mixture of dramatic and silly moments. The performances lend humanity to the characters even though much of their lives and interiority is not revealed to us. The resolution is triumphant but humble enough I didn’t roll my eyes.
Wicked Little Letters movie is a great reminder of how much the world has changed. Libel laws are a lot stricter in the UK than they are in the U.S., but on the internet anyway you can call people all manner of things without facing criminal charges. It is the case, though, that, depending on an individual forum board, Discord server, or social media site’s moderation policies, you might get pushed off the site; and if what you say is the right kind egregious and caught by the wrong people, your job might be on the line. The biggest system shock and compelling plot component exists in the reminders of how, as corrupt and inefficient as police are today, as broken as our judicial systems are, and as rampant and accepted as casual male chauvinism and misogyny remain, it used to be – systematically, if not ubiquitously – worse. At any rate, that is some of what the film is arguing. Wicked Little Letters fits neatly between See How They Run and The Banshees of Inisherin in tone, substance, the broad structure that determines genre, maybe even quality. I’m not sure whether it deserves to be lauded, but it deserves to be seen.
Final Score – 3/5
pcvulpes 