Sometimes love comes from the most unexpected places. Some people meet their mate through dating apps which have gamified romance. Some people through sex parties. Back in the old days, you’d meet someone at the bar. Or, even further back, you’d get set up, by a parent, and you’d just hope for the best. There might be a dowry involved. Maybe you’d grow to like each other over time. But love can also come from a basket weaver, the one who lives deep in the woods, the one you’ve commissioned to weave you a husband. Mostly as a joke, but now you’re actually falling in love. For a wicker man (not that one, don’t worry). Wicker is a wild surprise of a film. It spins a loopy fable that begins ridiculously and ends in tears. It’s a bit of magic that, in spite of its ridiculousness, Wicker is an endlessly beautiful fairy tale. Brought to life by yet another astounding performance by Olivia Colman and exquisitely shot and designed, Wicker’s treasure is in its hopeless romanticism that insists that pure love and adamant individuality can create irrevocable progress through osmosis. That change is brought about through Fisherwoman (Colman), who exists in a fictional time and space that looks and sounds like a slightly more askew Elizabethan England. It is a time in which everyone, regardless of sex, is known by their relationship, either to a partner or to a career, or both, in a funnier but similar way to The Handmaid’s Tale. Fisherwoman is constantly mocked in this small country village because her profession has her persistently smelling like fish, and because she is haggard, and dirty, and keeps mostly to herself. The one person in town who seems to treat her with any degree of kindness is Basketmaker (Peter Dinklage, who also provides the film with an infrequent narration). A master of his craft, Basketmaker creates the ceremonial eggs for the town wedding receptions, which the single women toss in the air; as in a modern-day gender reveal party, the one who gets blue powder is thought to be the next person blessed with a husband. At one such wedding, one of Basketmaker’s eggs falls to Fisherwoman, and she is subsequently blasted with blue. The townsfolk are petrified at the implications of this bad omen, and Fisherwoman, frustrated with the constant mockery and in vain hope she might be able to dismantle some of their explicitly patriarchal ceremonies, asks Basketmaker to weave her a husband. He considers. He says okay. He says to meet at the chapel in a month. And, then there he is: the Wicker Husband (Alexander Skarsgård), in such exceptional prosthetic makeup and design that Guillermo del Toro would shudder in disbelief. The two get married and have insane bed-breaking sex for ten minutes. Like in Pleasantville, this small disruption to the natural order of things creates a domino effect of uncomfortable progress. Women about town become jealous of Fisherwoman’s deafening orgasms and her defiance of gender norms, and the men cannot comprehend why this wicker man is so keen to be a good provider. “When she is happy, it makes me happy,” he tells the guys at the local pub. They don’t really get it.

Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson’s fable, adapted from the short story Wicker Husband by Ursula Wills-Jones, is powerful enough to resurrect the fairy-tale genre all together.

The biggest obstacle to their peace and harmony is Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki), whose carefully crafted social status is threatened by someone who lives so far outside the bounds of normalcy, so much so that, Iago-like, she tries to poison Fisherwoman’s ear with the suggestion of multiple affairs. But, Fisherwoman’s husband is so pure of heart that it begins to change everyone’s perception of partnership, Tailor’s Wife included, and a small town finds itself on the brink of a brand-new era. Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson’s fable, adapted from the short story Wicker Husband by Ursula Wills-Jones, is powerful enough to resurrect the fairy-tale genre all together. Sweet, hilarious, heartbreaking, insane, it accomplishes all it sets out to do and more. Though if I had one complaint it’s that the film could even go further. I mean, if we’re going to see Colman get humped by a man made of wicker, you might as well show us the whole thing. He is, after all, like Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation, fully functional (if you know, you know).

Packed to the walls with marvelous performances as it is, Wicker is still Colman’s at the end of the day. There are probably few other actors that can make us believe someone falling madly in love with a man made of wicker. She is, as always, luminous and powerfully vulnerable. Through Fisherwoman’s massive eyes, through her partnership with her husband, Wicker re-teaches us how to love. But, beyond its absurdity, Wicker works because its allegory is both clear and flexible. This is a story about upending patriarchy through a pseudo-queer relationship, and what’s especially smart about Fischer and Wilson’s script is that it demonstrates how any gender-based hegemony disintegrates the integrity not just of women but of men. Yet, it is also a film about artistry and the essential function it plays in any community, and that storytelling can both keep us held back as well as push us forward. It just depends what you’re willing to believe.
Wicker screened at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Release Date

January 24, 2026

Runtime

105 minutes

Director

Eleanor Wilson, Alex Huston Fischer

Writers

Eleanor Wilson, Alex Huston Fischer

Producers

Brent Stiefel, Olivia Colman, David Michôd, Lia Buman, Tim Headington, Justin Lothrop, Brad Zimmerman, Ryan Heller, Ed Sinclair, Tom Carver