WICKER: 3 ½ STARS. “an innuendo laden look at unconditional love.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Wicker,” a new romantic fantasy/comedy, Olivia Colman plays a woman who jokingly commissions a master weaver to make her a husband made of wicker.
CAST: Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Elizabeth Debicki, Marli Siu, Nabhaan Rizwan, Richard E. Grant, Peter Dinklage. Written and directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson.
REVIEW: A bawdy farce with a tender heart, “Wicker” is an innuendo laden look at unconditional love, jealously and envy.
Adapted from the short story “The Wicker Husband” by Ursula Wills, “Wicker” is set in an uptight medieval farming village. Olivia Colman is the Fisherwoman, a woman ostracized by her community due to the odor of fish that follows her around and her unconventional (for the time) thinking.
Tired of the constant taunts from the locals—“Fisherwoman,” teases a villager, “you caught yourself a lover yet?”—she sarcastically commissions the local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband out of wicker.
To everyone’s amazement, the wicker man (Alexander Skarsgård) comes to life and proves to be the perfect companion. Handsome, loyal and adoring, he tells the Fisherwoman, “I am here to marry you.”
Their passionate relationship—“I’ll be fixing the bed this afternoon,” he says after their wedding night. “It broke again.”—causes the Fisherwoman to reassess her, “love seems more burden than a prize” mantra, and becomes the talk of the town, inspiring envy and jealousy. “The wives, they’re all aflutter!”
An adult fairy tale, on the surface “Wicker’s” unconventional, “Beauty and the Beast” love story is horny and hilarious but dig deeper and it’s also a satirical look at marriage and gender roles.
In this story women are “collared” to their husbands, giving up their own identities at the moment of matrimony. So, as a representation of a woman finding love on her own terms, the Fisherwoman’s relationship with her Wicker Husband is a slap to the face of the villager’s social norms. She is a nonconformist, not looking for approval in a place where fitting in is the custom.
At the center of it all is Coleman. A mix and match of boldness and insecurity, her take on the Fisherwoman as a fiercely independent woman who opens up to her unusual beau, allows for broad comedy and heartfelt, tender moments.
Instead of playing the joke Skarsgård, hidden beneath a wicker suit, plays it straight. He’s the love interest, and, as such, plays it like a romantic leading man role. The subtle creaking of the woven wicker that makes up his body aids in the performance, adding a handmade feel to the character.
“Wicker” is weird and wonderful, but its study of societal expectations, and a woman who breaks them, that makes it memorable, not the flashy wicker suit.
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