{"id":96430,"date":"2024-02-22T14:16:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T14:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/?guid=978cf5101314a6011f6fe70c428bf433"},"modified":"2024-02-22T14:16:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T14:16:03","slug":"wicked-little-letters-review-a-flimsy-comic-farce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/22\/wicked-little-letters-review-a-flimsy-comic-farce\/","title":{"rendered":"Wicked Little Letters review \u2013 a flimsy comic farce"},"content":{"rendered":"
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T<\/span>his coffee table comedy from director Thea Sharrock and writer Jonny Sweet attempts to blow its viewers\u2019 minds with the revelation that it\u2019s not just men who have potty mouths. We\u2019re down in the sleepy seaside burg of Littlehampton on the Southern-English coast during the early inter-war period. The mousy yet pompously-pious Edith (Olivia Colman) receives a poison-pen letter in the mail, much to the ire of her pearl-clutching parents (Timothy Spall and Gemma Jones). And it\u2019s not the first.<\/p>\n

The note contains reams of sexually-suggestive invective, all delivered in a strangely eccentric style. But who could be sending these malodorous missives and causing the perennially-single Edith all kinds of emotional strain, and whose life has, we discover, been a beset by an endless series of upsets and misfortunes? It\u2019s most likely the shit-kicking, hooch-downing Irish good-time gal who lives next door, Jesse Buckley\u2019s Rose Goodling. Whatever the truth, she\u2019d be very easy to pin this crime on until the real culprit turns up.<\/p>\n

Wicked Little Letters is the cinematic equivalent of the cosy mystery in literature: it cleaves to a tried-and-tested whodunit structure; divides the characters up into obvious goodies and baddies; and plays things out with the minimum of surprise and innovation. To cap things off, Anjana Vasan\u2019s Lady Police Officer Gladys Moss takes on the case, even though the men at her constabulary see it as being above her pay grade. Swearing aside, it\u2019s all extremely nice.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s sad about the film is that the feather-light comic tone seems to preclude any deeper insight into what are, on paper, a set of potentially fascinating and psychologically deep characters. Each one is given their simple demon to slay, and the film goes no further in trying to open things up further and pick up on some delicious ambiguities that are ripe for the picking. Edith in particular is woefully underdeveloped.<\/p>\n

And we know that humour is a purely objective thing, but for this viewer there is a serious dearth of deep, resonant laughs. The naughty-naughty rude-rude puerile humour gets tired very quickly, and seasoned comic talents such as Colman and Vasan just aren\u2019t given the material to work with. The film\u2019s third act attempts to place this piece of intriguing historical flotsam into the wider context of British society\u2019s inherently misogynistic strictures, but it\u2019s too little too late.<\/p>\n

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