Wicker

Any heterosexual single woman has a horror story or two about the modern dating market. But the pre-industrial rural society at the heart of Wicker reminds viewers that slim pickings in the search for a partner is hardly a recent phenomenon.

In its folkloristic setting, women like Elizabeth Debicki’s character are referred to as “the doctor’s daughter” or “the tailor’s husband”: defined by their relationship to men. The local fisherwoman (Olivia Colman shedding any vanity, covered in grime, sporting a tousled mop of short curls and a unibrow) stands out. Traditional marriage with its brute rituals of a metal collar placed around the wife’s neck, doesn’t interest her. Yet despite taking pride in her fierce independence, she can’t help the sense of loneliness creeping up on her. One day the spinster visits the town’s basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) and asks him to craft her a husband. He complies and a month later, a strapping wicker creation (Alexander Skarsgård) turns her world upside down.

Directors Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer adapt Ursula Wills-Jones’s fable-like short story The Wicker Husband into a rambunctious comedy with downright raunchy elements. The feature’s marketing foregrounds the pair’s intimate involvement, which is entirely absent from the original material. In a way the decision blurs a deterministic distinction between genders and becomes a mirror image to films like Mannequin and Weird Science. Still, the scenes of their lovemaking are framed as comic rather than sensual. The sound design makes clever use of his material straining in certain situations.

Perhaps incidentally but quite effectively Wicker hits the nail on the head about men misunderstanding what women actually want in a partner. (Listen up, red-pillers: it’s not about “the top 10%”!) The fisherwoman and her wicker man’s marital bliss soon causes strife among their neighbours. Women are outright jealous of his attentive, caring nature and his kind words, while the men can’t fathom why he would repair things around the house and help with chores “to make her happy.” Unable to see people who defy social norms this happy, the villagers begin to weave intrigue against them.

In assembling such an eclectic ensemble cast, it is easy to see why the filmmakers would want to make use of their talent and expand upon the world in every single direction. Gustav Lindh and Richard E Grant have particularly strong, memorable supporting performances that bring the script’s eccentric humour to life. At times these in depth glances into the families of bottle-washer, butcher and baker however lend the film an overly wide-ranging air. Dinklage has two longer monologues, where he is talking to himself about the process of creating wooden stand-ins. While it can be seen as an allusion to fairy-tale conventions such as Rumpelstiltskin singing his own praise, it lacks in dramaturgical necessity and feels primarily designed to prolong Dinklage’s screen time.

Olivia Colman’s disarming sincerity elevates the offbeat humour as well as the piece’s more dramatic elements. The story’s core themes of embracing the vulnerability inherent in a relationship are expertly handled by her and Skarsgård. The latter is practically unrecognisable in prosthetic get-up and needs to act against the physical layers shielding most of his facial expressions, but manages to infuse his voice with tangible complexities of a non-human entity coming to understand emotions.

After the production’s premiere at Sundance at the beginning of the year, cinephiles have had to wait far too long for this oddball folktale, but shortly after screening at the London Film Festival it will hit public cinemas. Anyone with a taste for the whimsical and the wonderfully weird should not miss this absolute hoot of a film.

Selina Sondermann

Wicker is released on 30^th October 2026.

Read more reviews from our London Film Festival 2026 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the London Film Festival website here.

Watch the trailer for Wicker here: