This is one entertaining romp starring Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley that keeps you interested even after you think you’ve solved the mystery. They play so well off each other in Director Thea Sharrock’s film about a small English town in the 1920’s where the residents are receiving disturbing letters laced with profane personal insults. Writer Jonny Sweet must’ve enjoyed writing those letters plus the screenplay is filled with snide barbs Colman and Buckley get to throw at each other.
Olivia Colman, once again, shows amazing range with the subtle raise of an eyebrow, then being sweet and coy as the prim and proper Edith Swan. Jessie Buckley plays the outrageously uninhibited neighbor who becomes Edith’s frenemy. As many of its residents receive shockingly disgusting letters filled with vulgar insults, it’s time to find out who’s doing it. Edith is pointing the finger at her neighbor, a wild young WWI widow, Rose Gooding (Buckley), who recently came to town from Ireland with her young daughter, Nancy, (Alisha Weir) and lover, Bill (Malachi Kirby).
The film is based on the true story of how the townspeople, including the saccharin sweet neighbor, Edith, turned on Rose intimating that she was the culprit sending everyone letters laced with the most profane language. Watching Colman and Buckley go at each other with insults is rather disturbing, yet hilarious in a continuous verbal cat fight as the letters keep piling up.
Repressed Edith is living under the thumb of her despotic father, Edward (Timothy Spall). He plays this role with venomous glee. Her mother, Victoria (Gemma Jones), is submissive and sickly. The letters containing outrageous blasphemous language keep coming to all but Rose, making her the prime suspect. And her boisterous behavior doesn’t help. Buckley is a riot in the town bar, drinking and throwing darts with the boys and at them, laughing her ass off.
As more disgustingly profane letters are received, including to Edith, the police are called in to investigate. The chief and his constable just jump to the conclusion that Rose is the perpetrator and throw her in jail. But the young, smart and lone female police officer, Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) is suspicious and wants to investigate. Of course, she’s thwarted by the male police chief’s misogynistic hierarchy. So she goes at it on her own. Anjana is engaging as Gladys, adding her expressive, wide-eyed personality to devise a plan for catching the prolific defamatory writer. Using basic police work and scientific trickery, she enlists the help of a couple of women in the town along with a lesson in penmanship for her plan. Then things come to a head in a rousing court scene.
Will the reveal be as shocking as the content of those letters? The clue comes early in the movie, but the proof is in the pudding for how Director Sharrock and writer Sweet set well-timed wheels in motion to catch the perp in the act. Colman and Buckley show they’re both game and hilarious in this piece of forgotten history in a profanely prolific, poison-pen whodunnit.
Sony Pictures Classics 1 hour 42 minutes R
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