Oscar winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite) and Chernobyl star Jessie Buckley are ready to reconnect on comedy Wicked Little Letters, which will be a hot project in the Cannes market, following their Oscar nominations for drama The Lost Daughter. Studiocanal, the French studio behind Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, conceived the concept, is beginning sales, and is producing alongside Blueprint and Colman’s South Of The River Pictures. The film, which is based on a true event, will feature in-demand British and Irish actors playing very different neighbours who come together to solve a mystery.
In the movie, Buckley will play the vivacious Rose Gooding, who has little in common with Edith Swan (Colman) other than the fact that they were neighbours in the beach village of Littlehampton in the 1920s. When Edith and others in the town start getting scandalous letters written in bizarre and obscene language, the finger of suspicion is quickly pointed at Rose. As Rose’s freedom and custody of her daughter are threatened, and obscene messages continue to plague the community, police woman Gladys Moss suspects something is wrong. Gladys works with a gang of resourceful ladies to solve the mystery, free Rose, and find the true perpetrator.
Director Thea Sharrock when asked about the movie said, “Wicked Little Letters is a divine comedy with a profoundly moving core. Hilarious, witty, joyous and based on a true story as relevant today as it was 100 years ago. Watching this film will be like hitting your funny bone; when the tears of pain and laughter are impossible to separate. Olivia Colman is hilarious, brilliant and brave. In the part of Edith, she will continue to show her extraordinary dexterity as an actor with her unique ability to make us fall in love with her. In Jessie Buckley we have cast the actress everybody wants to see; her ferociously strong energy will explode the character of Rose onto our screens. Following The Lost Daughter our film reunites two of the world’s most exciting, accessible, fun and wild actresses.”