Oscar winner Olivia Colman and nominee Jessie Buckley are already two of the best actresses working today. So what do we get when these two are paired up as warring neighbors in a 1920s dark comedy? You get Wicked Little Letters, which premiered earlier this year at TIFF.
Based on a true story and directed by Thea Sharrock (The One and Only Ivan), the film centers on neighbors in a small 1920s English town at the center of a scandal where the residents have been receiving foul-mouthed, expletive-laden letters.
Here’s the synopsis: A 1920s English seaside town bears witness to a dark and absurd scandal in this riotous mystery comedy. Based on a stranger-than-fiction true story, WICKED LITTLE LETTERS follows two neighbors: deeply conservative local Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) and rowdy Irish migrant Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley). When Edith and her fellow residents begin to receive wicked letters full of unintentionally hilarious profanities, foul-mouthed Rose is charged with the crime. The anonymous letters prompt a national uproar, and a trial ensues. However, as the town’s women – led by Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) – begin to investigate the crime themselves, they suspect that something is amiss and Rose may not be the culprit after all.
This film obviously belongs to Colman and Buckley, a reunion after 2021’s The Lost Daughter. Also in the cast are Timothy Spall and Anjana Vasan.
Colman was most recently seen in Marvel’s Secret Invasion series. This weekend Buckley stars with Riz Ahmed and Jeremy Allen White in Fingernails.
Wicked Little Letters opens in the UK next February, with a US date to come soon.
