'Wicker' Review
Release Date: 10/23/26 [Cinemas]
Genre: Comedy. Drama. Fantasy. History. Romance. SciFi.
MPAA: Rated R.
Distributor: Black Bear.
The Verdict: A Must-See
If you’ve ever been in a serious relationship, you’ll understand that love may not always be tangible, but it is always fragile. But what if the person you loved was literally just as fragile? The new film Wicker answers that question in a surprising, sexy, and heartfelt way.
Adapted from the short story “The Wicker Husband” by Ursula Willis, the film follows a lonely fisherwoman who commissions her town’s basket weaver to make her a husband. But when the wicker creation comes to life and sweeps her off her feet, it sets off a chain of events that causes chaos among the local villagers.
What could easily have become a creature feature or cautionary tale about desperation (or an allegory about how the perfect man would drive society mad) becomes instead a fun, funny, fleshed-out metaphor for how strange the act of loving is. Whether romantic or not, humans seek companionship. We come into this world alone. Yet many of us spend our lives chasing a figure we build up in our heads as “that special someone”, someone we can share our lives with, a soul to share our secrets with, a whole other being we can willingly call our other half. We're not guaranteed to find such a person, yet we gamble our hearts over and over for the chance at completion.
Just as we don’t know for sure whether we’ll fall in love or who we may fall for, we shouldn’t judge anyone for their journey either. This is one major change to the story that writers and directors Alex Huston Fischer & Eleanor Wilson brilliantly explore in their adaptation. In the short story, the villagers’ cruelty stems from jealousy. Whereas in the film, we see the varying degrees of jealousy both men and women feel with the arrival of the Wicker Husband. For example, one wife longs for his kindness. One husband aspires to be as useful as he is. And one curious couple wants to check out his big wick. These liberties are integrated so seamlessly into the source material that they also make it feel more timely and relatable.
Olivia Colman delivers one of her most delightful performances to date as the Fisherwoman. Like Colman’s previous repertoire, this one is also very quirky. But it’s truly enjoyable to see her go from someone who wants to be part of a status-quo coupling to realizing she needs to love herself before she can love anyone else. While she does undergo a minor makeover over the course of the film, embracing her imperfections brings out the true beauty in herself and her relationship.
Having built a career on masculine characters, Alexander Skarsgård shines in the film as a physically and emotionally vulnerable Wicker Husband. It’s a role with few words. But that makes his performance all the more impactful. Even if you don’t fall in love with him, you’ll feel like you can confide in him - especially as he reminds you he’s “very flammable.”
Elizabeth Debicki, Peter Dinklage, and even Richard E. Grant are just a few of the bigger names rounding out the cast of some of the more important village people. But none carry the film as well as the film’s costume department. You may not believe it at first, but the Wicker Husband is nearly 100% practical, designed by the Oscar-winning Wētā Workshop. It may sound hyperbolic, but the incredible devotion to the husband’s realistic design immerses you in the fable and makes it more effective. It’s so convincing that, in any other hands, it’s hard to believe the story wouldn’t snap under its own weight.
The film’s only con is that it paints the relationship between the Fisherwoman and the Wicker Husband as picture-perfect. This, despite some very clear internal conflict. Instead of showing how the couple navigates the town’s jealousy, we spend more time with the villagers as they keep praying for their downfall. When the internal conflict eventually sparks a major dispute, you can’t help but feel like it escalates too quickly.
Admittedly, the film is nowhere near as raunchy as the marketing implies, with the steamiest scene happening early on. At the same time, while both the film and the Fisherwoman’s initial attraction rest on the promise of something physical, it becomes surprisingly meaningful along the way.
Wicker is far from Fifty Shades of Grey (thankfully), but it will still have you submitting to its message about how deep and delicate human love is. Most importantly, it proves that even though society is full of pricks waiting to break you, you ultimately weave your own happy ending.
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