Wicked Little Letters: ‘Whodunit’ or Who Cares?

N o one does a “whodunit” like the British. There is something morbidly captivating about the quiet charm of English country life disrupted by violent murder. An act of evil abandon amidst a culture of politeness and restraint. The criminal mastermind, the iron fist in a velvet glove.

But it’s not all death and gore. Some “whodunits” involve lesser offenses. Such is the case in Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters — more like a “who wrote it” — a comedy based on a true story about a much-forgotten libel mystery from the 1920s.

In the story, set in the seaside town of Littlehampton, Sussex, in the 1920s, Edith Swan (Olivia Colman), abandoned by her husband, lives with her elderly parents. Edith’s father, Edward Swan (Timothy Spall), is insufferably overbearing. Repressed and bored, Edith befriends the uncouth Irish woman next door, Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley). Rose’s disinhibition enthralls Edith, but their friendly relations sour after Rose insults Edith’s father, and then someone (Rose presumes Edith) calls Child Protective Services on Rose, questioning whether she is fit to take care of her ten-year-old daughter, Nancy.

It is then that Edith begins to receive absurdly profane letters. It’s intended to be part comedy, part mystery. Who is sending them? And why? The obvious suspect is Rose. But it’s too obvious. Rose has no difficulty insulting people directly. Besides, the language is contrived. Swearing, it seems, does not come naturally to the culprit.

At her father’s insistence, Edith goes to the police and delights in the ability to, for once, take charge of her own life’s narrative. A good Christian woman, she tells Chief Constable Spedding (Paul Chahidi) and Constable Papperwick (Hugh Skinner) that she saw herself “as a missionary” in her friendship toward Rose. Later, she tells Rose she would like to bring her to the “light.”

But this backfires. While the judge who decides that Rose should go on trial for criminal libel says she “allegedly harassed a pretty young Christian woman,” others see Edith as “an ugly old spinster who still lives at home.” One media report reads that “the childless spinster is grim looking and not conventionally charming.”

As Rose faces trial, the letters begin to be sent to other villagers besides Edith. The Littlehampton letters cause “widespread distress across the county,” according to local media.

There is also a looming miscarriage of justice. Rose, if convicted, could be sentenced to twelve months’ hard labor. And so various villagers and woman police officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) plot to catch the letter writer red-handed. Which they ultimately do.

Wicked Little Letters is a better mystery than a comedy. Colman’s performance as Edith was enjoyably passive-aggressive, almost as good as her performance as the stepmother in Fleabag. Buckley was very annoying as Rose, though perhaps that was the point.

The women’s-rights movement is the backdrop. British women were enfranchised in the U.K. in 1918, but not on equal terms with men until 1928. Leaning in to this, in the movie, male characters are mostly arrogant and incompetent to the point of caricature. The bumbling-policeman joke gets old fast. Especially given that, in the true version of events, it was Scotland Yard inspector George Nicholls who cracked the case and restored justice.

Even as a mystery, it’s difficult to invest too much since the crime in question is so petty and the culprit so obvious. There are attempts to address this. For instance, in one scene an elderly character dies after reading a particularly offensive letter. This is not done for laughs as much as to emphasize the devastating power of words.

The British need to lighten up. The actual offense (letters calling people “foxy a** whores” etc.,) is underwhelming such that the whodunit begins to feel like a who-cares. Unfortunately, in 2024, a hundred years after the Littlehampton letters, British authorities are behaving with much greater arrogance and incompetence, expanding police powers over offensive speech.

Consider Scotland’s recent hate-crime legislation. In the 1920s, Rose Gooding faced twelve months of hard labor. In the 2020s, a comedian who makes a rude joke about trans people could face up to seven years’ imprisonment. Talk about a dark comedy.