Susan Granger’s review of “Wicked Little Letters” (Sony Pictures Classics)
If profanity doesn’t bother you, Netflix’s “Wicked Little Letters” is tawdry period comedy at its most delightful.
“There’s more true than you think…” informs viewers at the outset.
Based on actual events that occurred in the 1920s in the quaint English seaside town of Littlehampton in Sussex, the story revolves around two Western Road neighbors: prim, prudish spinster Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) and outspoken Irish emigre Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley).
When genteel Edith and other unwitting residents start receiving what could only be described as raunchy, anonymous ‘hate mail,’ suspicions immediately fall on foul-mouthed Rose, an impertinent single mother who lives with her guitar-playing daughter (Alisha Weir) and Black boyfriend (Malachi Kirby)..
As these obscenely graphic, libelous notes flood the working-class community, uptight, dutiful Edith and her strictly religious parents (Timothy Spall, Gemma Jones) file a police complaint, even as Edith murmurs: “We worship a Messiah who suffered, so by my suffering, do I not move closer to heaven?”
Although there’s no evidence that exuberant Rose is the culprit, the boorishly inept officers-in-charge (Hugh Skinner, Paul Chahidi) charge her with the crime, sentencing her to spend two-and-a-half months in Portsmouth jail with her daughter remanded to social services.
Only ‘Woman Police Officer Gladys Moss’ (Anjana Vasan) – as she introduces herself – tries to ignite a real investigation; predictably, her entreaties are ignored. Britain first recognized female police constables in 1915 during the First World War, but they weren’t taken seriously by their patriarchal cohorts.
But then the local ladies’ whist group arranges to pay Rose’s bail, raising additional questions and attracting the attention of the British government.
Scripted by Jonny Sweet and directed by Thea Sharrock, it’s a facile, farcical mystery, playing on misconceptions and misogyny. And note in the epilogue what actually happened to those involved in this real-life societal commentary.
FYI: Jessie Buckley played a younger version of Olivia Colman in Maggie Gyllenhall’s “The Lost Daughter” (2021).
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Wicked Little Letters” is an absurdly scandalous 7, streaming on Netflix.
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