The year of Women! So much is going on both in real life and in films. The British never fail to give us dark comedy served on a silver platter and Wicked Little Letters is a delightful cup of tea…laced with arsenic.
Wicked Little Letters
Netflix offers the best gems and with this British comedy/mystery film, Wicked Little Letters, directed by Thea Sharrock, written by Jonny Sweet and starring Olivia Coleman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Malachi Kirby, Timothy Spall, Joana Scanlan, Eileen Atkins and Alisha Weir.
The film takes place during the early 1920s, when women are fighting for their rights via the suffragette movement, but Edith Swan (Olivia Colman), a spinster, and her saintly mother (Gemma Jones) are under the complete control of the abusive Edward Swan (Timothy Spall). The only breath of freedom comes with Edith’s friendship with Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley). Rose is an Irish woman who has settled in Littlehampton with boyfriend (Malachi Kirby) and her young daughter (Alisha Weir).
Now here is the tea part. This film is based on true events that took place in 1918 and made national headlines. Edith and Rose were close friends. It was funny to see the friendship between Edith and Rose grow because Edith was very ladylike and religious whereas Rose was loud and mouthy. Edward is a bully and when he sees that Rose is pulling Edith out of her shell, he quickly puts an end to the friendship. And that is when the nasty, obscene letters begin to arrive at Edith’s home. These letters are packed full of outrages descriptions of Edith’s physical and spiritual personality.
It isn’t long before the entire town suspects Rose and, even though Rose denies the letters, she is arrested and sent to prison to await trial. Things are looking bad for Rose. If she goes to prison, she will lose her daughter, but luckily for Rose, a female police officer (Anjana Vasan) and two of Edith’s friends are quite suspicious of who is exactly sending the letters.
Conclusion
Now comes the arsenic for our cup of tea…the true story happened exactly as is shown in the film with a few liberties. Edith and Rose were real, and the letters were real. You need to watch Netflix to find out who was really sending the letters. The hatred and language used in the letters is shocking even to modern ears who have seen and heard it all.
As the story unfolds, we watch how women were treated back then, and it wasn’t pretty. Anjana Vasan’s character is almost as important as the main characters of Colman and Buckley…maybe more so because of the constant humiliation under the thumb of her misogynist commander who will not allow Officer Moss to do her job. What makes women so ready to turn on each other at the whims of the men in their lives? There is an election happening in the States. We now have a second chance to get a woman elected to the most important job in these United States…and guess who is attacking the woman candidate the most. Yep, other women. Ladies! It’s time to sip that tea as sisters.
Wicked Little Letters is a bloody good mystery.
