‘Wicked Little Letters' is a fun movie, I swear

Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley shine in foul-mouthed British comedy-mystery

(Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)

Standing on their own, the swear words in “Wicked Little Letters” don't leave much of an impression. So many f-bombs are dropped in the film that you think the characters would be knee-deep in them by the end.

But every once in a while, a character strings a series of profanities together into a foul-mouthed aria, the curses tumbling out one after the other like the carriages on a runaway train going off a cliff. It’s majestic to behold.

And yet, even though Thea Sharrock’s movie is the rare British historical comedy to earn a red-band trailer, it’s more sweet than wicked, and buoyed tremendously by a pair of energized, oversized performances from Buckley and Olivia Colman.

The film is supposedly based on a true story (“This is more true than you’d think,” reads the opening titles, not exactly instilling confidence) of events that happened in a British town called Littlehampton just after World War I. 

Edith Swan (Colman) and Rose Gooding (Buckley) are neighbors, and in a nifty visual joke, Edith’s front door is just a half-step higher than Rose’s, signaling their different status levels in the gossipy little town.

Edith is a pious woman still living under the thumb of her repressive father (Timothy Spall in perpetual high dudgeon) and meek mother (Gemma Jones). Rose is an Irish war widow who has moved to town with her daughter (Alisha Weir). While Edith spies furtively on the goings-on in town through her curtains, Rose is a smirking free spirit who struts around town, often with a bottle in her hand, and seemingly doesn’t care what people think of her. 

Then Edith starts receiving a series of anonymous letters filled with profane insults. Suspicion in the town immediately falls on the salty Rose. Rose has a pretty good alibi – why would she write dirty words anonymously when she feels comfortable saying them publicly? – but the townspeople turn against her, especially when they start receiving nasty letters too. She’s not helped by a patriarchal judicial system that thinks modern detection techniques like handwriting analysis are spurious, but finds the fact that Rose is Irish and unmarried to be compelling evidence of her guilt.

The lone holdout is the only woman on the police force, Gladys Ross (Anjana Vasan), who with the help of some local amateur sleuths tries to suss out who is really wielding the poison pen. The first half of “Wicked Little Letters” sustains the mystery, although to be fair it’s not too hard to guess who is writing the letters, and the movie pretty much gives up and tells us halfway through. After that, it’s more of a caper comedy as Gladys and her crew of irregulars try to prove Rose’s innocence.

“Wicked Little Letters” relies on its verve and its wit, with a rogue’s gallery of eccentrics in the cast who keep the film moving. Buckley is delightfully raw as a no-filter woman who doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her (or so we think). And Colman expertly plays the different sides of Edith, a shy nobody who starts enjoying her celebrity status as a wronged victim. 

The movie extends compassion to all the characters (except maybe Spall’s tempestuous father) as individuals, even as it takes a dim view of mob mentality, and the collective rush to demonize one person and deify another. It’s the sort of R-rated movie you can take your mom to – don’t worry, she already knows all those words.

“Wicked Little Letters” opens Friday in theaters. In Madison, it will play at AMC Fitchburg 18 and Marcus Point.