Wicked Little Letters (15) – Tuesday 8th October Tickets £6 from usual shops.
One of Netflix’s top movies is the British comedy/mystery film Wicked Little Letters, starring Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley. As you watch the film, you might wonder if it’s based on a true story and if the 1920s libel scandal actually happened in real life.
Directed by Thea Sharrock and written by Jonny Sweet, the film follows Edith, an English woman who starts receiving a series of anonymous obscenity-filled letters. She suspects they’re from her rowdy Irish neighbour, Rose, but Rose denies involvement, claiming that her outspoken nature would make such letters unnecessary.
The scandal escalates in the town, and Rose is put on trial, as Edith’s nosy friends and the town’s only female police officer set out to uncover the identity of the real sender. The film takes place in Littlehampton, Sussex, England, and stars Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman and Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley as the feuding neighbours. BAFTA nominee Anjana Vasan, Timothy Spall, Gemma Jones, Hugh Skinner, Paul Chahidi, Joanna Scanlan, Lolly Adefope, and others also star.
Wicked Little Letters is based on the real-life hate mail scandal, also known as the “Littlehampton letters,” which involved four court cases and three prison sentences over almost three years. Edith Swan and Rose Gooding were neighbors living in Littlehampton, a seaside town in West Sussex, in the early 1920s