There’s something equally impressive and depressing about the squandered potential of misfiring period comedy Wicked Little Letters, a joyless waste of cast, premise and setting which has landed with an almighty thud at this year’s Toronto film festival. A once promising reunion for The Lost Daughter co-stars Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley, it instead represents a regretful low point for them both and for this year’s festival thus far, the only little letter it deserves being an F.
There are plenty of f-words being thrown about in the film, arguably too many, the majority of jokes relying on our shock at hearing prim characters use foul language(!), the novelty of which wears off within minutes. Based on a real-life scandal, it tells the story of a neighbourly feud in 1920s West Sussex between Colman’s religious puritan Edith and Buckley’s rule-defying wild child Rose. Once close friends, a falling out has pitted them against each other with Edith receiving a string of obscene letters and Rose being the number one suspect.
