Wicked Little Letters (2024)

Wicked Little Letters arrives as a 1920s seaside mystery with a foul mouth and a casting agent who has read the room. Thea Sharrock's film assembles a conspicuously modern, multi-ethnic ensemble in a period Littlehampton that historically would not have looked so varied. Anjana Vasan's Gladys Moss, a woman of colour, is the investigating officer; Lolly Adefope and Malachi Kirby appear in support. The casting is clearly curated for contemporary eyes, though the film does not stop to applaud itself.

The film's engine is feminist grievance. Edith Swan, played by Olivia Colman, has spent years absorbing her father's control; Rose Gooding, played by Jessie Buckley, is the Irish migrant scapegoated by a police establishment that dismisses Gladys and suspends her for investigating. The women band together against a misogynistic hierarchy. Race enters lightly: Gladys cites the discrimination she and Rose have faced, a moment that registers without becoming the film's central concern. The true Littlehampton libels are reframed through this modern lens, though the historical record is largely followed. Revisionist history here is a matter of casting and emphasis, not wholesale invention.

The film's absences are as telling as its inclusions. There is no same-sex subtext, no climate crusade, no anti-capitalist ire, no body-image discourse, no neurodivergence thread. The antagonist is a domineering patriarch, not capital. The sermonizing is kept light. The film gestures at women's rights and institutional sexism through bawdy comedy, which is the correct delivery system for a story about profane letters. The result is a period piece with progressive sensibilities that knows better than to lecture. It is diverting, well-acted, and only mildly taxing on the conscience. A respectable vintage, if not a rare bottle.