A 1920s English seaside town bears witness to a dark and absurd scandal in this riotous mystery comedy. Based on a stranger than fiction true story, the film follows two neighbours: deeply conserva...
Ran across this film by complete accident weeks ago and I think it’s safe to say I’ve stumbled across a good enough find: “Wicked Little Letters”, while far from a hidden gem, makes sublime use of its three P’s: profane, prim and proper to both appropriately laughable and…..annoying conventions.
Thea Sharrock’s intended direction gives off the vibe of a veteran art teacher underlining every action with a sharpie: it’s clear and profound and there’s a playful theatricality to how she filters each scene progression but you can tell that her blending of humor and thematic heft doesn’t always yield the results you expect. Sometimes it’s for the better, others, not so much.
I want to give this film its flowers for how it constructs its entire setting. It harbors no illusions about its small scale but they do just enough with the interwar timeline bleeding into the environments around them to construct a believable portal back to 1920’s England’s countryside, even letting some of the art direction lean into this alternative revisionist lens to let the illusion slide. Yet, I couldn’t stop myself from nitpicking certain landmarks and thinking to myself “It feels too modern” at multiple points.
I really expected the cinematography and editing to be more adventurous than what I ended up getting but there’s no taking away how solid the film looks overall; they counteract that with humanistic simplicity between its close-up, medium and wide shots to convey distance in the characters facades. Pacing compliments that with a runtime that doesn’t lag, it passes its R-rating test with flying colors, costume design is genuinely remarkable in how they portray a characters social standing and while the tone is exceptionally light-hearted, it’s flexible enough to make room for sentimentality (it is a black comedy after all) as Isobel Waller Bridge’s musical score makes sure to adapt to seamlessly.
The tracks she composes are very preppy to listen to, honestly.
Most of the characters here lean heavily into stereotypes and they’re stuck with dialogue that, while it does pop off, still leave us with verbal expressions and vocabulary choices that are distractingly modern. The common denominator between them is they’re all boasted by an outstanding ensemble that are fiercely up to task, with Jessie Buckley helming the fort and having a good fucking time. Olivia Colman, though, comes dangerously close.
Eschewing a convoluted plot in favor of its true-story foundation molded in a formulaic package, it’s nonetheless a premiere example of a “based on a true story” tale with major liberties taken, although not with the framework of the tale and thankfully not completely to the detriment of the actual story. For all its gossip, intrigue, silliness and absurdity, the story is less a mystery and more of a character study masquerading as a psuedo-heist to catch the perpetrator in the act. It radiates beautifully on impudent energy and the film knows where to place them in certain moments but it feels more comfortable in its character study phase than with plowing through the mystery and its shifting focus in those moments make that abundantly clear.
For the latter half of that equation, it only goes so far as to hint at darker human urges, exploring how female behaviour was strictly controlled in a patriarchal and religious setting, and emphasizing the absurdity and hypocrisy behind how women were treated in the 1920’s. Even the exceedingly obvious twist paints the portrait of a woman weaponizing what little she can to find power and release in such dire circumstances while chained up against her will; keeping secrets and stilling discontent because of the consequences of not doing so while pondering what it would be like to stop giving a damn. You can definitely argue the manner in which it dissects that is very heavy-handed but I’ve made my opinion about this known before: sometimes you have to nail a certain message down on the head a lot for it to truly resonate.
And in today’s day and age, it still hits just as hard.
That being said, between its social commentary and the intended execution of it, this story had the potential to be more than the sum of its parts. Make no mistake, it’s a riot watching the film gladly bathe itself in its own bawdiness but even those has its limits. Once the novelty of hearing constant profanity wears off, the script becomes pretty thin rather quickly and more structural flaws of the storytelling bear fruit. It won't lessen the enjoyment of watching the drama play out but it does diminish the bite that the tale starts out with and it’s filled with a lot of irritating modern anachronisms. Like, the real Rose not being Irish as she is in this film and the laudable use of black and Asian actors portraying characters in a 1920’s period piece is especially distracting, especially as the film seemingly went out of its way to ignore any racial tension that otherwise would’ve been very important in a story such as this. It doesn’t exactly turn the tone on a tightrope and I have no qualms with colorblind casting most of the time but here, it did pull me out the experience a little.
Still, it was nice learning about this story and see it brought to life in a way where more people are aware of it. I’m all for missing pages of history getting revisited for the new generations.
