Review: Wicked Little Letters
A film to write home about.
It’s Sunday afternoon, and there’s nothing much on the telly. I could sit at home and suffer through the endless aeons of Doctor Zhivago, and all those even more endless balalaikas. But that would be a cruel and unusal form of punishment to inflict on myself on a day filled with the apricity and promise of oncoming spring. So off I went to Middlesbrough to watch Wicked Little Letters, which actually feels like a very “Sunday” thing to do, like curling up on the sofa and watching Passport to Pimlico, or a Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple. This is a bit like a latter day Ealing Comedy, except it’s one with a swear box. A fucking huge one.
The story is based on the true case of the Littlehampton Letters¹ , a series of poison pen letters sent in the Sussex town of Littlehampton just after the end of World War 1². And although there are some embellishments for the sake of the medium, the story stays relatively close to the facts.
Edith Swan and Rose Gooding are neighbours. We join proceedings with Edith having just received what is described as a 19th poison pen letter sent to her home address. The contents of the letter are shocking to Edith and her parents, and her father rushes to the local police station to report its arrival. Edith’s father, portrayed by Tim Spall, is depicted as a martinet, and her home life is cloistered and suffocating.
While Rose and Edith had apparently been friends, relations between numbers 65 and 67 are somewhat strained by the time the story starts. We see the widowed Rose’s arrival with her young daughter, Nancy, and her new partner, Bill, showing her attempts to fit into her new home. At first, though Edith is taken aback by the younger Rose’s forthright demeanour, and her not entirely controlled mouth, they form a friendship. This is abruptly ended when the authorities call at the Goodings’ home after reports that her daughter has been neglected, as Rose believes the Swans are responsible. Towards the end of the film we discover who is actually the perpetrator of this triggering incident.
Once the arrival of the letters is reported, suspicion immediately falls upon Rose, and the police are quick to reach for the easy conclusion that she is the culprit, given that they mostly see her as mouthy, Irish, and (unlike her accuser) lacking the expected standards of ‘femininity’ and ‘decency’. Only one of the local force remains unconvinced by the convenience of this: WPC Gladys Moss³, played by Anjana Vasan, though her doubts remain unlistened to by her chauvinistic superiors. In spite of Gladys’s misgivings, Rose is arrested, and committed for trial, only avoiding a longer remand stay in Portsmouth Gaol after being bailed out by some of her neighbours in the town.
Eventually the trial begins. As the trial goes on, Gladys and some other women of the town become increasingly convinced of Rose’s innocence and attempt to assemble the evidence that will reveal the true identity of the author of the letters. But will they manage to do it, and make sure justice is properly served?
I mentioned Ealing Comedy earlier because of the quality of the casts those films had. We see this here too, with the assembly of some hugely talented actors to create a properly sparking company, even down to Jason Watkins and Dame Eileen Atkins having small, but satisfying little roles in amongst it all. The leads, Jessie Buckley, and Olivia Coleman are note perfect, and the principal supports around them don’t disappoint, not least of whom is Timothy Spall, who turns in a spellbinding take as the Swan’s not entirely endearing paterfamilias. The thing is, while this film isn’t a comedy per se, because some of what goes on is truly heart-rending, it is punctuated by lots of properly laugh out loud moments, usually (but not always) centring around the contents of the letters themselves, and the shocked recitations of their contents in hugely unlikely places, including before a packed Crown Court. The other thing to notice is that there are also some 21st century sensibilities overlaid on top. Others may make more of the culture-neutral casting, but I won’t much further, because it works perfectly well, and is done in a way that allows some of the obvious prejudices of the time (and some from ours) to add additional depth to reinforce them. The most obvious of these are the early digs at Gladys from all sides, particularly at her role as a woman trying to make her way in a very male, and often hostile environment.
As the film continues, though it’s not giving away much to say it’s clear Rose is not repsonsible for the things for which she is charged, the denouement is at turns both satisfying, and intensely bittersweet for a number of reasons, especially in the very final few seconds.
At only around 100 minutes, it’s a lovely little amuse-bouche for a Sunday afternoon, and is probably a useful advance palate cleanser before I consider braving the forthcomng marathon of Dune Part Two.
¹ See the story in the 21 February Guardian article.
² According to https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/wicked-little-letters/ the first letter was dated 14 May 1920.
³ Who was indeed the first female police officer in West Sussex.
