In the wake of the First World War, a single Irish woman with a daughter arrives in the small town of Littlehampton and unsettles the local Christian community with her raucous behaviour and profuse swearing. Her particularly devout neighbours are most upset, and when local residents start getting scabrously abusive, anonymous letters, the immigrant is seen as the natural culprit.
The film is based on a true story, but also puts a blackly comic slant on it, while also not neglecting the poisonously sexist and conservative environment of the time. The mystery element of uncovering the real perpetrator of the hate mail isn't especially complex, but there are a fair few guffaws to be had and the interplay between Jessie Buckley as the single mother Rose, Olivia Colman as her religious neighbour Edith and Timothy Spall as Edith's tyrannical father is as compelling as you could wish for from such a cast. The F-word and C-word count is through the roof within minutes and continues at such an excessive rate that it actually serves to drive the film on relentlessly by steamrolling through all constrictive social mores. Better to ridicule such a society than to just remain aghast at it.
7/10
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