Wicker Review: The Love That Is Woven in the Heart

Attention, gentlemen seeking matrimony. Apparently, the most desirable man conceivable looks like a young Ron Swanson, has the voice of Alexander Skarsgård, and occasionally creaks. This is one of the first of many morals of Wicker, the delightfully bawdy fable about the most erotic caning since Sylvia Kristel’s peacock backed chair.

Adapted from Ursula Wills-Jones’ 2008 short story “The Wicker Husband,” Wicker is a fairy tale for adults, a captivating and cunning story of a Fisherwoman (played with delicious glee by Olivia Colman) whose solitary manners have led to a solitary life. Plus, the stench of tench and the odor of cod don’t make her the most appealing of potential brides. Not that she minds that much – or at least it seems so until the ribbing of the villagers encourages her, in half-jest, to implore the Basket Weaver (Peter Dinklage) to weave her a husband. Which, being a skilled craftsman, he does. And so, on the appointed day, at the destined hour, she and her wooden gentleman (yes, it indeed Skarsgård) meet at the church and become Fisherwoman and Wicker Husband.

This is most undeniably a fable, with Hungary filling in for the kind of rural idyll that always hosts such tales, sometime between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution and some place along the English Eastern seaboard where cockles are only a day’s walk away. It’s the kind of never-was in which one would find a Wicker Husband, but he’s not just decorative. Gentle of tone and lacquered of frame, he is handy with a hammer and, ahem, another tool, as proven by the screams of delight emanating from the Fisherwoman’s home. Of course, the villagers are appalled by this pairing. After all, he tends the home while she labors – an inversion of the norm in a place where one is defined by one’s purposes and so folk simply refer to couples by their trade. Thus, everyone speaks of the Tailor (Nabhaan Rizwan), even if they know that the Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki) rules the roost. Moreover, the Wicker Husband dares to raise the bar for what wives can dare to expect from their husband.

There’s a magic here that writer/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson weave, one whose spell is never broken because of the delightfully idiosyncratic tone that resonates throughout Wicker. It’s that rare sense of grounded wonder that similar stories, like Nights of Hero and Tale of Tales occasionally graze but never truly embrace. It’s the kind of film that will elicit wild cackles of laughter, like a story told around a fire at night. There’s also tragedy woven into the comedy, and that is inevitable in any good folk tale, but tragedy is like fire: it can warm the heart, or burn the world, and Wicker is cunning enough to hide and finally illuminate its resolution like the best of fables do.

Above all, Wicker is a story about love, and what one should do when one wants to protect and nurture it. Even under a remarkable CGI skin, Skarsgård is magically tender in the part, proving by topping and tailing the year with gay BDSM biker romance Pillion and Wicker that he is Fabio of uniquely aspirational romances. He’s met in this strangeness by Colman, who purposefully plays her as the most unlikely of romantic leads, with a snorting laugh and a sharp tongue when needed. Meanwhile, as their unlikely matchmaker, Dinklage gets the double joy of delivering two of the most intriguing monologues of recent years while subverting the trope of the magical little person. Between them, they bind together the most unexpectedly wonderful date movie of the season.

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This article appears in October 23 • 2026.