War of the words
WICKED LITTLE LETTERS Cert 15 ★★★ In cinemas now
Swearing might not be big or clever but an impeccably timed expletive can make a film script sing. Writer-director Richard Curtis peppered the opening 90 seconds of
Four Weddings And A Funeral with more than a dozen delightfully plummy f-bombs and Bruce Willis visibly relished the profanity that punctuated his yippee ki-yaying of terrorists throughout the Die Hard franchise.
Combine all the curse words in these films and they pale politely next to the tirade of filth that tumbles from the gleeful lips of characters in Wicked Little Letters.
Torn from real-life newspaper headlines that scandalised post-first World War
Britain, director Thea Sharrock’s gloriously foul-mouthed comedy drama terrorises a God-fearing spinster (Olivia Colman) with poison pen correspondence supposedly scrawled by her rambunctious next-door neighbour ( Jessie Buckley). “This is more true than you’d think,” teasingly promises an opening caption.
Screenwriter Jonny Sweet playfully embellishes reported facts with the kind of rapid-fire vulgarity usually reserved for a Quentin Tarantino or Spike Lee movie. Except, the mean streets here snake through the sleepy town of Littlehampton nestled cosily on the English Channel at a time when handwriting analysis lacks scientific credibility in confirming a suspect’s innocence. And the only female police officer (Anjana Vasan) is casually disregarded by the old boys’ network unless she is making them a pot of tea.
Wicked Little Letters skitters over the surface of prickly topics including institutional sexism and domestic violence in between confirming the most likely suspect as the author of the potty-mouthed missives.
Colman delivers a masterclass in reactive facial expressions as she trades verbal grenades and one perfectly lobbed c-bomb with Buckley’s rambunctious
Irish immigrant.
Supporting cast endorse the enthusiastic appropriation of profanities while Timothy Spall’s menacing patriarch perfectly reflects the close-minded attitudes of an era that is bygone but certainly not forgotten.
‘‘ Colman delivers a masterclass in her reactive facial expressions