I don't think there can be too much argument about the level of talent on display here, telling the true (albeit slightly embellished) story of the small English town of Littlehampton and the spate of letters allegedly sent by Rose Gooding, something of the local roustabout, the gobby Irish migrant cow, to Edith Swann, her next door neighbour.
I can't imagine what teenage Americans would make of this, aside from abject confusion and impatience, I expect, but this is a real treat nonetheless. With a host of recognisable faces, even the odd Oscar winner, this trots along merrilly and will no doubt offend almost everyone still alive who would have been old enough to remember the time, if not the specific events. The picture window is given great authenticity and the cinematography specifically is excellent.
Thea Sharrock (Me Before You) is at the helm here of another unashamedly and quintessentially English story, which even now finds toilet humour and bad language both silly and hilarious, focusing the verbal affrontery of these abusive and filthy letters in a time during the 1920s when this would garner as much ire as suspected witchcraft would have done a century earlier, no doubt.
Sharrock is here to make us smile, if not snort uncontrollably, and has achieved exactly that. The cast is a who's who of seasoned British talent and you will most likely recognise every single face from television shows from the last couple of decades.The whole thing is abundantly tongue-in-cheek and ludicrous, of course, but still immensley foul-mouthed fun.