What is a lonely, frustrated fisherwoman bothered by her village folks regarding the lack of a spouse to do? Get someone to whip up a husband made of wicker for you, of course. And you can trust Peter Dinklage to mould the perfect man a woman dreams of, apparently. The upcoming film Wicker starring Olivia Colman and Peter Dinklage is that romantic fantasy-comedy.
Directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, Wicker, is based on Ursula Wills-Jones’ 2008 short story The Wicker Husband. It follows a lonely fisherwoman played by Olivia Colman, who is mocked by the people in her medieval seaside village for being unmarried. So she commissions the local basketmaker, played by Peter Dinklage, to make her a husband who is played by Alexander Skarsgård. And yes, he is entirely made of wicker.
A rather vulgar and heartwarming fable at the same time, reportedly. The trailer gives us a woman who has found herself an unconventional husband, a village full of people who suddenly have plenty to say about it, and a wicker man who appears to be remarkably gifted in the bedroom. One villager puts it succinctly: “I heard he’s strong as a tree and just as hard.”
The trailer suggests that the marriage is considerably more successful than anyone in the village expected. Back at her run-down shack, the fisherwoman enthusiastically experiences a lover’s attention for the first time, unperturbed by his wooden everything. And who can blame her, seeing as how the strapping sapling is embodied by Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård, clearly recognisable beneath a veneer of elegantly woven willow? The village women who once mocked the fisherwoman are suddenly very interested in him.
The original fable uses an impossible situation to poke at rather ordinary human behaviour around loneliness and marriage. Wicker seems to have kept that spirit while making the whole thing considerably stranger, and sexier. You have a woman who wants companionship, a basketmaker who claims Mother Nature is involved, and a village that suddenly has a lot of opinions about a marriage.
Wicker premiered at Sundance earlier this year and will arrive in select US theatres on October 23, expanding nationwide on October 30. In India, BookMyShow currently lists October 30 as the release date.
The cast is almost comically stacked for a film about a woman marrying a basket. Colman and Skarsgård lead, with Dinklage as the basketmaker and Elizabeth Debicki, Richard E. Grant, Marli Siu and Nabhaan Rizwan among the supporting cast.
Then there is the small matter of Skarsgård actually having to become a wicker man. Wētā Workshop, the effects house behind The Lord of the Rings, Avatar and Dune, built a fully practical suit and facial prosthetics for him. Most of the film uses no CGI for the character, with limited visual effects used for details such as light passing through the weave to make him appear hollow. Alexander Skarsgård really spent a film wearing a wicker body.