Wicked Little Letters

Thea Sharrock's Wicked Little Letters arrived in cinemas in early 2024 (UK release 23 February 2024) after a Toronto International Film Festival premiere in September 2023. Sharrock, who came to film from a celebrated career in British theatre, directs from a screenplay by Jonny Sweet built around one of the more peculiar episodes of Edwardian and post-war English crime: the Littlehampton libels of 1920–23, a real scandal in which a Sussex seaside town received hundreds of anonymous letters written in language so foul they were read out, with relish, in court.

Olivia Colman plays Edith Swan, the devout spinster receiving the letters; Jessie Buckley is Rose Gooding, her Irish neighbour and prime suspect. Anjana Vasan is the unflappable WPC Gladys Moss, a real historical figure and one of the few women in the constabulary; Joanna Scanlan, Lolly Adefope and Eileen Atkins round out the village's gossiping circle. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land) shoots Worthing's pebble beaches in soft, postcard light, and Isobel Waller-Bridge's score keeps the tone close to a comic mystery.

The film became one of the more successful British arthouse-leaning releases of its year, taking around 27 million dollars worldwide on a budget of roughly 12 million. Critics noted that Sweet's script leans into the period's appetite for filth, and that the Colman–Buckley pairing (the two had played mother and daughter in The Lost Daughter) gives the film much of its energy. Buckley collected the British Artist of the Year prize at the British Academy Britannia Awards, and the film picked up further nominations at the British Independent Film Awards.