‘Wicked Little Letters’ review: Star power boosts wicked little comedy

Movie review

Last time we saw Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley in the same movie, they were playing the same character. In Maggie Gyllenhaal’s affecting drama “The Lost Daughter,” both were cast as Leda, a professor and mother who struggled with choices made in her past. Colman played her in middle age, Buckley as a young adult, and though they never shared a screen, it was uncanny how you could see each mirrored in the other. Now they are in the period comedy “Wicked Little Letters,” playing characters who are the opposite of each other: Colman plays Edith, a pious, repressed woman living with her strict parents; Buckley is Rose, a free-spirited single mother who frequently enjoys a pint or two. The performances are utterly different — Colman’s every facial muscle is tightly controlled; Buckley is all looseness — and yet there’s a connection between them; you can, somehow, imagine these women as friends.

Thea Sharrock’s “Wicked Little Letters,” set in small-town England in the 1920s, is a charmingly funny little movie with a few things to say. It’s based on a true story, in which seaside community Littlehampton (the sort of picturesque place where every doorway seems to have a nearby rose-draped trellis) was horrified by a series of poison-pen letters — cruel and often obscene — sent first to Edith, then to other townsfolk. Rose, known for her uncensored tongue, is immediately arrested for the crime, but maintains her innocence: “Why would I send a letter when I could just say it?” Meanwhile, police officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan), the only woman on Littlehampton’s force, delves further into the mystery, launching a clandestine investigation that becomes, literally, the talk of the town.

Said mystery turns out to not be terribly compelling (you’ll guess it early), but it matters not a whit; the fun here is watching these performers. The cast is stellar even in the smallest roles: The great Eileen Atkins, making a rare screen appearance, gets a wonderful moment in which she expresses the local women’s frustration with, after having worked alongside men during the war, having to go back to “being decent.” And the central trio of Colman, Buckley and Vasan (whose character has to deal with the indignity of being called “Woman Police Officer Moss,” and who reminds us that hostile work environments are nothing new) are a joy. Watch as Vasan resolutely raises her chin, or Colman twists her mouth into a sour knot upon hearing someone swear (“indoors, and on a Wednesday,” which somehow makes it worse), or Buckley’s face lights up with the memory of having been “roisterous” once or twice. It’s a little story, but it’s wicked fun.