Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Alex Huston Fischer, Eleanor Wilson
Starring: Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Dinklage, Elizabeth Debicki, Richard E. Grant, Nabhaan Rizwan, Marli Siu, Ella Bruccoleri
Have you ever found yourself watching a movie and feeling it would be more engaging as a musical? That's the feeling I got watching Wicker, from the married directing duo of Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson. There is a minor dance sequence in the middle of Wicker, but it never breaks out into full-on song. In every other way the movie resembles a classic musical, with its fantastical plot and not quite real setting. The film makes the sort of blunt points that might land better if its characters were warbling their way through witty rhyming couplets.
Based on Ursula Wills' short story 'The Wicker Husband', Wicker is set in a fairy tale fantasy world that resembles a multi-racial version of Medieval England. None of the characters are named, rather the men are simply known by their professions ("The Tailor," "The Butcher" eta l), while the women are designated solely by their relationships to their husbands ("The Tailor's wife," etc). Living outside this rigid societal norm is the unmarried fisherwoman (Olivia Colman), who is mocked by the locals for her fishy stench and lack of a mate. A group of Medieval mean girls is headed by the tailor's wife (Elizabeth Debicki), and they seem to mock the fisherwoman as a way of covering their own insecurities.
Eventually, the mocking proves too much and the fisherwoman decides she needs a husband. Trouble is, she doesn't like people all that much, so she commissions the town's basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to fashion her a spouse from wicker. The fisherwoman is thrilled to find that the resulting wicker husband has the hunky form of Alexander Skarsgård. Not only is he an athletic lover, but he sees to all of the fisherwoman's household chores. Not only can he break her bed, but he can mend it too!
The presence of this "perfect" specimen causes trouble in the village. The women begin wishing their husbands were more like this ligneous lothario, and the husbands grow resentful of the comparison. Though her wicker husband seems devoted solely to her, the fisherwoman grows paranoid that he will leave her for a more attractive mate.
Wicker is a one-joke movie in search of a punchline. The blunt central gag is that men are so useless they can be replaced by a few reeds weaved together, but that point is made early on and the film can't find anywhere to take the story from there. Wicker wants us to sympathise with the fisherwoman, and it certainly helps that she's played by one of our more empathetic actresses in Colman, but I'm not convinced she's really worthy of our sympathy. The fisherwoman seems quite happy embracing spinsterhood, so it is disappointing that she essentially gives in to the norms of her messed up society rather than sticking to her guns.
Wicker doesn't quite know what to do with its titular timberman either. He's essentially the sort of AI sex-bot with whom real world incels dream of replacing human partners. He exists solely to cater to the whims of the fisherwoman, but unlike Obsession, there is no human trapped in a limbo to make way for him, and thus no real moral dilemma for the fisherwoman to grapple with. Technically, nobody is being harmed by the fisherwoman bonking a piece of wood, but it's still a bit sad. We keep waiting for her to come to her senses and realise she's living a lie, but the movie is entirely on her side. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I would have been more satisfied had the fisherwoman hooked up with the basket weaver. We live in a disturbing time where people are scared to put themselves out there and do the hard work of finding romance with another living, breathing human, with men "falling in love" with AI chatbots and women becoming addicted to fantasy romance novels where the female human protagonists have it off with beasts. Again, maybe I'm just an out of touch "kink shamer," but I find such people pathetic. Wicker's message, on the other hand, is "good for them."
Wicker is in UK/ROI cinemas from October 30th.
