by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Elizabeth Debicki, Peter Dinklage, Richard E. Grant
Intro:
… as warm and comforting as a crackling fireplace, never afraid to feel the burn for the bliss that it provides.
Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, the husband-and-wife writing/directing duo behind Wicker, have interesting track records as creatives, both on their own terms and as a team. Wilson, over a handful of short films across the 2010s, established herself as a patient and attentive cinematic voice with a penchant for exploring the stories of women and the thornier interior details of their relationships with spouses, family, and even themselves.
Fischer, on the other hand, makes films with titles like Snowy Bing Bongs Across The North Star Combat Zone (which gets an ecstatic recommendation; truly a one-of-a-kind oddity), focusing more on a familiar avenue of American indie cringe comedy about adults who can’t get their heads around this whole adulting thing.
Their first collaboration with Save Yourselves, about a tech detox being derailed by an alien invasion, showed promise in their joined efforts, but ultimately retread a lot of old ground regarding the ubiquity of technology and Millennial arrested development.
Their latest, though, finds Wilson/Fischer not only at a much stronger equilibrium than previously, but also generating one of their best cinematic efforts across both of their careers thus far.
From its opening narration describing a fish trying to fuck itself, Wilson/Fischer’s adaptation of Ursula Wills-Jones’ short story reveals a degree of delightful vulgarity that would make Tony McNamara beam with pride. Never shying away from the immediate innuendo of a woman (Olivia Colman) commissioning a man made of wood (Alexander Skarsgård) to be her husband, and all the furious jumping that entails, the film’s bawdy and impressively articulate sense of humour makes this a fun watch just on its own.
Not that it’s all carrot codpieces and strawberry weeks; there’s genuine beauty to its storytelling as well. Peter Dinklage as the village Basket Weaver may admittedly be in less of the film than one would hope, but that’s purely because every moment that he’s on-screen is pure joy; the reclusive, ambiguously gay, Shakespearean-tongued worker who sees himself as lending a hand to the work of Mother Nature, with a romantic streak that kickstarts the film’s larger statements regarding love and gender politique.
The core romance between Colman’s Fisherwoman and Skarsgård as the yassified Wicker Man, both in performance and in writing, is endlessly heartwarming and swoon-worthy, but it gains further power with the beautifully detailed world around them. From marital traditions involving bridal collars, to variations on ‘knock on wood’ superstitions, to none of the characters actually having names, only occupations or familial statuses (Basket Weaver, Tailor, Tailor’s Wife, etc.), the patriarchal foundation of this town is both expertly established and gratifyingly splintered in the face of this unorthodox courtship.
While its commentary on patriarchal society and the restrictive nature of heteronormativity touches on familiar notions, its straight-forward approach to showing ye olden heteros getting upseteros only strengthens its mythic quality. It carries a similar capital-R Romantic air as something like Beauty and the Beast, where the purity of the central love story becomes a shining beacon that exposes the morose complacency and ugly entitlement of everyone else. This only heightens during the film’s climax, feeling like a lost Brothers Grimm tale in its exacting irony and poetic delivery.
It doesn’t hurt that the Wicker Husband himself looks amazing, and we’re not just saying that because of Alexander Skarsgård. The prosthetics used to bring this character to life is jaw-droppingly realistic, further aiding how genuine his love story is through how tangibly believable he himself is as a physical presence. The detailing for his ersatz flesh (crafted by the wizards at Wētā Workshop) resembles a more earthen take on the muscular suit of armour from Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, flexing wooden plates as he breathes and catching sunrays as they beam through pinprick holes in his weaving. Even as the narrative explores the Fisherwoman’s own covetous nature, and her reactions to the various strains of envy thrown her way, Skarsgard’s gentle timbre (a far cry from the primal animality he’s shown in films like The Northman and Infinity Pool) cuts through any potential objectification to reveal someone deeply, earnestly, in love… and merely wondering why such happiness would cause so much uproar.
Wicker is as warm and comforting as a crackling fireplace, never afraid to feel the burn for the bliss that it provides. Aside from being bloody hilarious and serving as another example of how Olivia Colman simply can do no wrong, its approach to heart-on-sleeve romance is not only thoroughly convincing and uplifting, but framed just so that it becomes something vital, a thing that must be cherished and protected. It shows wonderful balancing of Eleanor Wilson’s eye for highlighting feminine woe and injustice, and Alex Huston Fischer’s audacious sense of humour, marking a new high point in their creative pairing. A lovely film, itself created by a loving couple, that is itself a love letter to the Other and how it well and truly is not worth worrying about what the neighbours think.
