The jealousy of unhappy couples. The pettiness of mean girls. The frustration of insecure husbands. It’s a tale as old as time that’s curiously interpreted by writer-directors Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer in Wicker, an audacious, captivating film about an outcast woman, her wood-woven husband, and the village that collapses over their love.
This sophomore feature is a lighthearted period piece set in a time and place that never existed. Their screenplay, based on Ursula Wills-Jones’s short story The Wicker Husband, is a skewering of patriarchal relationship dynamics and traditions. The world they construct is a fun house mirror’s reflection of reality, allowing for a heightened world that feels believable despite its anachronous qualities. The characters have no proper names. Instead, as a jab to the old-fashioned practice of wives adopting their husband’s last name, the men are referred to by their occupation and the women by their relationship to those men. We experience the cruelty inherent to this society from the perspective of an outsider, someone who doesn’t adhere to its conventions and becomes the subject of ridicule for it. Adding some sweetness to their poison is the crass, bawdy manner with which the village hobnobs, wisely adding levity to their nastiness. Along with the sharp cultural satire, Wicker has one show-stopping card up its sleeve: a wicker Alexander Skarsgård.
While never explicitly stated, the adult fairy tale takes place in an unspecified medieval English village where The Fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) is mocked for her unkempt appearance and lack of husband. Her goods are fresh, but her unibrow, fishy odor, and limp make the unmarried woman an easy target. “Love seems like more of a burden than a prize,” is how she sees it. The only person with whom she shares a respectful relationship is The Basketweaver (Peter Dinklage), also the subject of mockery despite his talents.
After a wedding––where, instead of a ring exchange, the husband clasps a matrimonial collar onto his betrothed––The Fisherwoman opens a woven “maid’s egg” that, much like catching the bouquet, signifies she will be the next to be married; which is met with scorn from the village. Leading the nasty charge is the insidiously passive-aggressive social leader of the village, The Tailor’s Wife, played by a perfectly cast Elizabeth Debicki, whose imperious radiance makes for an ideal storybook villain. The women of the town all follow suit in their reinforcement of the status quo, pushing The Fisherwoman down in order to elevate themselves. Using her as the target of ridicule, they maintain the fragile facade that life is good and they are happy. But if those at the bottom no longer play by those rules, their house of cards collapses and chaos reigns.
Determined to mock their silly traditions, The Fisherwoman asks The Basketweaver to use his gifted craftsmanship to make her a wicker husband. He obliges and delivers a walking, talking, anatomically correct example. It doesn’t hurt that The Fisherwoman’s “timber knight” looks just like Skarsgård.
The reveal of The Wicker Husband is stunning. Practical effects are this film’s stand-out, thanks to Joe Dunckley and the New Zealand-based WETA Workshop, who have worked on pretty much any impressively tangible film project in the last 40 years, from Mad Max: Fury Road to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The woven components function like a Swiss watch, rotating and shifting with an artisan precision. Dunckley’s prosthetics allow for Skarsgård to emote while maintaining his resemblance and avoiding the grotesque. Completing this incredible effect is the work of sound designer Andy Neil, who renders the strains and stretches of the woven man with a fantastical artistry. In his performance, Skarsgård taps into his Scandinavian stoicism to play more Terminator than Scarecrow, but it’s what he represents as a sex symbol that’s important. The village is initially curious about this bizarre creation until the novelty of his relationship with The Fisherwoman that becomes the talk of the town.
While The Fisherwoman continues to be a fisherwoman, her Wicker Husband stays at home, fixing up the house and mending their belongings. Women of the village become envious of both The Fisherwoman’s capable partner and the agency she has as breadwinner. Not to mention the thunderous, passionate sex the two have on a regular basis. The other important factor that stirs the pot of dissent is The Fisherwoman’s newfound happiness. People unhappy with their own situation can’t stand to see someone else thrive, especially those in opposition to their values. Her elation exposes the unspoken problems in the village’s relationships, which surface and become a scourge on the husbands who all sheepishly commiserate at the bar of the inn. Wilson and Fischer revel in depicting the spite of the village households. The Tailor’s Wife feels this acutely as a bright, skillful woman who is kept at bay by her husband and dismissed by her father The Doctor (Richard E. Grant). She senses the tension of the village and sets out to put an end to their inconvenient bliss.
Wicker amounts to a can’t-miss curiosity, adeptly weaving humor, social commentary, and a potent contemplation on the self-destructive perils of jealousy. Wilson and Fischer sum it up in a disgustingly accurate sentiment for our contentious age: “It’s easier to believe the bad than the good, isn’t it?”
Wicker premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.