Alexander Skarsgård and Olivia Coleman are the wicker man and wife at the heart of this darkly funny satire.
Wicker is the story of a lonely fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) who spends her life savings commissioning her deeply eclectic, epiphanic thinker friend, the Basketmaker (Peter Dinklage), to make her a husband. The craftsman creates her a tall, dark, handsome, and hilariously creaky Wicker Husband (Alexander Skarsgård) who adores his wife.
He represents the perfect fantasy novel husband: he’s quiet, handy, attentive, and only has eyes for his wife. Perfect in form and fiercely loyal, he unintentionally exposes the façade of the villagers’ happy lives and marriages, acting as the catalyst for the chaos and unfortunate events that follow.
When the premise of a film centres on a smelly fisherwoman who marries a man made of straw, it’s hard to expect something other than a crass sex comedy. Yet this dark fable-turned-film, based on Ursula Wills’ story The Wicker Husband, is a much deeper and richer story. Directed by husband-and-wife director duo Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, it arrives on the big screen as a dark folklore satire.
But the film proves to be much more than a salacious tale.
Yes, there is a man made of wicker, with wicker abs, big wicker pecs, and a wicker penis, but the film still touches on many relevant themes. It is part of the mischief-making fun of this movie that the wicker man is attractive. And even though viewers can only see Skarsgård’s eyes peeking from the mask, they are completely full of love and admiration for his wife.
All in all, it’s quite an absurd tale, but one told with some grounded performances from the leads.
Olivia Colman expertly commands the role of The Fisherwoman. She portrays the full gamut of emotions: frustration, grief, love, and loss, and makes the audience feel them alongside her. The Fisherwoman represents society’s anachronistic expectations toward single women over the age of 40. She’s a frumpy, unhappy, smelly spinster desired by no one; the ultimate societal horror.
Meanwhile, The Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki) is the perfect antithesis to everything that The Fisherwoman is. She appears as the polished but nice-nasty, traditional woman who is happy to play her role of wife and homemaker, reminding the other women of their roles within society.
The medieval-style, ultra-patriarchal village is full of gossipy, sexually dissatisfied wives and husbands who suffer from severe delusions of grandeur, believing they are the cream of the crop. They participate in crude marriage rituals, like the tradition of a woman wearing a collar once the nuptials commence, and the men wearing a harness with a carrot attached to represent a phallus and letting an animal bite it off.
The men in the village (Gustav Lindh, Kiell Smith Bynoe, Phil Daniels), without exception, are sexist, raunchy egotists who don’t see women as people but merely as baby makers and sexual objects. The juxtaposition between the village men’s extremely toxic patriarchy and the gentle nature of The Wicker Husband helps make it obvious why the women are attracted to him, and why the men will eventually hate him.
Ultimately, Wicker is a beautifully bizarre look at human nature that poses the question of whether DIY partners could become the new normal.
Directors Huston Fischer and Wilson wrap up the chaos – no spoilers – with a happy ending that leaves the audience satiated, yet wishing they could stay in this bizarre world just a little longer.
For fans of dark fantasy, with a dash of satirical smut, this film is a win.
