Posted in: Current News, Movies, Pop Culture | Tagged: Anjana Vasan, Jessie Buckley, leicester square, london, olivia colman, Thea Sharrock, west end, Wicked Little Letters

Olivia Colman & Thea Sharrock Introduce Wicked Little Letters (VIDEO)

Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan and Thea Sharrock introduced a screening of the new film Wicked Little Letters.

I just went to a screening of the new film Wicked Little Letters in London's Leicester Square at the Odeon De Luxe West End, just after seeing Ricky Gervais' new show – more on that later. But before the press got a screening of the film we got an impromptu unplanned introduction from three of the film's stars and the director, Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan and Thea Sharrock, who had been drinking nearby and got dragged in by the movie's PR people when they realised. And now you get to enjoy the introduction as if sitting in the comfy sofa chairs with extendable legs.

Wicked Little Letters itself is based on a true story about the small English seaside town of Littlehampton in 1923 that gets national attention after a poison pen letter gets picked up by the local and then national media. It leads to questions asked in Parliament and pressure on the local police to secure a conviction.

Olivia Colman, playing the woman who received most of the letters, is extraordinary in the film, the camera holding her face as a multiplicity of emotions play across it, especially in the final court scene. Timothy Spall does similar, as a patriarch grasping what little remains of his authority, threatened by the young Irish neighbour, tearaway and prime suspect of the letters, played by Jessie Buckley, and her daughter, Matilda's Alisha Weir.

The town is a deliciously complex place with various factions within, with The Thick Of It and No Offence's Joanna Scanlan allying with We Are Lady Parts' Anjana Vasan, the first woman police officer in town, and bringing Ghosts and Everyone Else Burns' Lolly Adefope from the post office into the investigations. While the police themselves are divided with W1A and Fleabag's Hugh Skinner as both a wonderfully ineffectual policeman, harbouring dangerous toxicity that makes them even worse.

Wicked Little Letters may be set one hundred and one years ago, but writer Jamie Sweet has found that it reflects modern-day trolling, anonymity and accountability on social media, the damage it can cause, and the inevitable realisation that things are rarely quite what they seem. But the film is mainly about the idea of female identity and freedom within a patriarchal society, about the cages we make for ourselves and others, and ends with the very notion of freedom being challenged, escaping a social cage for a physical one. It manages to flee from its own cage of being a farce to become something more straightforward, moving, and true. Everyone has a valid reason for who they are and what they do, even if they don't know it themselves.

Littlehampton is a place where everyone has their place, which can be strangling. And those who refuse to take their place are both frustrating and inspirational. The English class system has maintained order; the Irish invader turns it on its head, and something must be done.

On top of this, this may be one of the most foul-mouthed films in history even if the words are reserved for short bursts. Swearing can be big and clever, and especially in the mouths of what are seen as the respectable members of society, are even funnier. Whether being read in disgust over a dining table, called out in a court of law or shouted from the most unlikely people, what originally begins as abuse eventually becomes a sign of freedom. And in a small, beautiful, perfectly kemp place like Littlehampton, a true star of this film as well, for some people the only way to be free is to leave.

Wicked Little Letters is on release in the UK and Ireland from the 26th of February, and in the US on limited release from the 29th of March.

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