VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Olivia Colman & Thea Sharrock On The Role Of Women In ‘Wicked Little Letters’

Actress Olivia Colman and director Thea Sharrock reflected on the role of women in their period comedy film, Wicked Little Letters, in their new uInterview.

“A small movie that talks about a lot of big ideas,” as uInterview founder Erik Meers termed it, Wicked Little Letters is set against the backdrop of a quaint English coastal town in the 1920s and revolves around the lives of two neighboring individuals: the staunchly traditional Edith Swan (Colman) and the foul-mouthed Irish immigrant Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley).

Inspired by a true story, the film shows Edith and her fellow townsfolk become recipients of mischievous letters that brim with unintentionally comical profanities, and the blame falls upon the spirited and foul-mouthed Rose. The arrival of these anonymous letters sparks a nationwide frenzy and leads to a trial. However, as the town’s resourceful women, spearheaded by the determined Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan), take it upon themselves to delve into the investigation, doubts arise in regard to Rose’s guilt and unveil a deeper mystery at play.

A major theme throughout the film is the role of women in society. Sharrock, the film’s director, emphasized, “For me it’s all about the detail, it’s all about understanding what the characters are and what their journey is… how do you make a moment feel real between two people?” she observed. “If you get those details right, then the bigger stories come out naturally.”

She continued, “What we’ve created, I hope, is something that has a lightness and a freshness and you can just have a laugh, it’s entertainment, it’s 96 minutes that is quite easy to watch, I think, and if you then come out of it and on top of it you want to talk about female emancipation, women in the workplace…comparing language, literally the use of language, as well as trolling how we do it this use days, compared to a poison letters 100 years ago…there’s so much there for people to take away, whatever it is that resonates most of all with them.”

Coleman, whose character delights in becoming a small-town celebrity, noted that she felt sympathy for her character.

“I knew from reading it that she had her reasons and I felt enormous empathy for her and what she had to live with,” she said. “I found her in particular quite funny. She had really rubbish swears, all the bad things she could think of when you find out what her life is like behind closed doors you understand, she’s being oppressed. If you put a woman in a box, it’s going to come back to bite you in the a–.”

“I’d like to give the people who say cruel things to strangers a cuddle and say don’t do it, you won’t feel better for it,” Coleman reflected. “Or, you might momentarily, but you’re really hurting others… the fallout from seeing something publicly about you…it can have really, really terrible consequences.”

Wicked Little Letters is now in theaters in New York and Los Angeles and will be opening nationally soon.