Wicked Little Letters

I enjoyed this movie very much. The performances are perfect.

Poisoning a village with wicked letters is a deliverance!

Predictable, tedious and with laughably inappropriate casting for a drama set in 1920 to suit 21st century colonial guilt.

A lot of it was kinda boring it’s not something that I would specifically pick out to watch but my fav actress Alisha Weir is in it so I wanted to watch it.

The trailer makes it out to be a riotous no-holds barred barrage of verbal filth and, while there's definitely some of that in there, it's more as the conceit for a somewhat played-out whodunnit. But it’s still damn good fun.

Oh yeah that’s a great flick

A movie that never flags is rare and Wicked Little Letters is just that. From the opening scene with the brilliant Timothy Spall as the over bearing father of his spinster daughter played by Olivia Colman, we see a masterclass in acting. There is a minor mystery whereby Colman's character Edith Swan has been receiving obscene letters filled with swear words. The suspicion falls on fiery Irish neighbour Rose Gooding played by Jessie Buckley who denies the accusation. The Swans want Rose arrested and what follows is a mixture of comedy and drama. It may depend on your sense of humour as to how funny you find this but some of it is a hoot. The majority leads more to drama and character study with Edith being completely dominated by her aggressive father. Rose is a fighter but being Irish, poor and this being 1920's England, she is unfairly treated by the authorities and is locked up. She has a daughter she is responsible for but has a live in lover to help while in prison. A benefactor for Rose comes in the form of a woman police officer played delightfully by Anjana Vasan who doesn't believe she is guilty and sets out to prove her innocence. Based on a true crime case, if you accept this is a parody of the factual case you will enjoy it the more. The swearing is unlike any other movie as it is the core of the story and not gratuitous so look beyond the face value of what you see. Top notch British character actors play all the parts with Colman, Buckley and Spall at their peak. I loved it.

Scandalously entertaining. A dramedy-mystery based on true events, Wicked Little Letters is situationally comedic and shockingly believable. Funny moments throughout are balanced by serious implications for Rose’s life. There is a sense of classic British comedy contrasted with the obscene letters of the crime. Wicked Little Letters is a perfect example of a good use of foul language. So many films are wrought with it (6 Underground, didn’t get past 10 minutes), and it’s simply unnecessary. Here, the language serves a purpose and the outrageous circumstances put it in the light of comedy. It’s also clearly not the film's focus and therefore isn’t overwhelming or jarring. Well done to Jonny Sweet for a great script. The ‘who-wrote-it’ mystery is revealed about halfway through, so the rest of the film is dedicated to Rose, Officer Moss, and their community catching the culprit with a heist-like energy. The midway reveal could have been - and should have been significantly more dramatic. More dramatic scoring for the scene, more exciting cinematography. For the first third of the film, we believe the protagonist to be Edith, and we’re unsure of the antagonist, but it could be Rose. The reveal suddenly swaps those roles and keeps us on our toes. Colman is precisely wicked. She is a powerhouse and leaves no ounce of her skill on the table for this role. She plays the prim-and-proper woman, the manipulated spinster daughter, and the foul-mouthed writer with believability. Let’s cast her in all the films. Spall brings every ounce of unpleasantry to his role as Edith’s passive-aggressive and verbally abusive father. The script reveals this gradually and as the story unfolds, we see how atrocious the Swan family dynamic is. The success of his performance is vital in understanding Edith’s lifetime of such poor treatment from her father that has driven her to such bipolar behavior. Every scene with the Swam family is one more layer of the disgusting onion peeled back to reveal Edith’s motive and inner conflict. Buckley is spirited as Rose Gooding. We all want to be her friend. She embodies the loveable protagonist with her own flaws. Her smile is warm and mischievous. I felt there was a HUGE loss of potential with the typography and graphics, during the opening titles and exposition and the closing. The first scene shows the subtitle “The 19th Letter” in the same handwritten typeface as the title card, and I was looking forward to more of this. This is the type of story that lends itself to such design, and they could have pushed the creativity of this aspect of the film. Wicked Little Letters is a triumph for women. These are the types of stories that ought to be shared to empower women: a group of everyday women fighting for the justice of another - including a ‘woman police officer’ who goes against her male superiors to investigate this case. A note to filmmakers: let’s find more of these true stories to adapt into the next film! We need more of this humanity! Don’t let the obscurity of this film keep you from seeing it before it leaves theaters!

What's going on gets revealed 2/3 of the way through the movie, then it really loses interest. Basically the hook is seeing a prim and proper English woman using foul language.

Boring, predictable and definately not funny. A pointless little story. It gets one star because the scenery and costumes were done well.