by Jeffery Rahming, Contributing Writer
Love can be a hard concept to understand. It’s generally considered the most important, most confusing, and most intense feeling in the human experience. But can you experience love if you’re not a human? And on the flipside can a human’s love be real if they created the very thing they fall in love with? While this may seem like the beginning of an article about A.I. psychosis, but Wicker is about just that. What counts as real love? And yes, it’s also about a woman falling for a man made of baskets.
Olivia Colman plays a middle aged woman only known as Fisherwoman. In fact, everyone from her town is only known by their jobs or the jobs of the men they’re married to, for example Elizabeth Debicki who plays our main antagonist is only referred to as doctor’s daughter or tailor’s wife. The fisherwoman is the only unmarried woman in the village. Her small little life is pestered by the passive aggressive townswomen who make fun of her occupation and loneliness. In a town where the marriage ritual involves the groom putting a heavy slave collar around the bride it’s pretty obvious why she’s not too interested in fitting in anyway. Eventually, though, the teasing gets too much, and she asks the local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) for a rather unique creation: a husband. Intrigued by the challenge the basket weaver ends up creating a being that won’t just change the fisherwoman but the whole town.
Despite this being released near Halloween it is in fact not a remake of The Wicker Man but is instead an adaptation of the short story The Wicker Husband by Ursula Wills. I can’t blame the obvious marketing ploy. A movie about a fisher falling in love with a living basket can be a hard sell. Luckily, Writer/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson have an expert level of control over the tone and pacing of the story. Everything from the set design, to the score, to the costuming, makes for a surprisingly immersive experience. By the time the credits roll you really feel like you’ve lived a whole life in this small little town with its characters. It feels overdramatic to say I was swept away by it but undoubtedly that’s what it felt like.
Wicker has a great story, one that you’re better off not knowing much about going in, but this is a movie that hangs on its stars. Colman and Dinklage may as well be performing Shakespeare. They’re absolute masters of their craft and their performances are worth the price of admission alone. Alexander Skaarsgaard plays the crafted husband in a performance that’s under-stated but still somehow feels emotional and funny like the rest of them. Of course, he’s aided by the insane practical effects work that go into creating the wicker spouse. Debicki shines as the best antagonist character of the year so far. Tailor’s Wife (or Doctor’s Daughter, it depends) is intimidating and beautiful and snarky but Debicki never loses that nagging look of insecurity in her eyes. It’s an incredible performance that really sells both the haughty pride and the barely hidden dissatisfaction that infects the whole town.
While our lead performances are sure to rack up some awards nominations this year, we have also have an incredible ensemble cast who all have perfect comedic timing and dramatic chops. This movie’s ability to go from serious to sad to wildly funny is mostly thanks to their skill. The townspeople as characters are a poignant representation of modern life. It’s as if they’re outgrown all their traditional social roles and Fisherwoman’s new husband completely exposes all their secret discontents just by being a simple and honest man (or whatever he is). While there are a lot of great scenes my absolute favorite is one where our romantics aren’t there at all. It’s just the townspeople doing an impromptu surgery. It’s hilarious, expertly performed and shot and quite honestly has no business to go on as long as it does but it had the whole theater almost on the floor laughing. There’s a weird duality where you hate these characters for how horrible they are to our protagonists but by the end you just can’t help but be a little endeared to them. Anyone can deeply relate with at least one of them if not a couple. Even if you’d never admit it.
This feels like it’s destined to immediately become a fall classic. Or at least become some weird off-Broadway musical that gathers its own cult following. Either way it would be a tragedy if this got passed over and forgotten or was just seen as a throwaway fantasy film for 40 year old women to watch when they’re in a mood. If the idea of this seems weird to you don’t worry you’re not in the minority. But regardless, this is a project where everyone gave 110% from the writing to the sets, to the performances turning a movie that had the potential to be an embarrassing disaster into one of the best of the year. It’s a nearly perfect romantic comedy that holds a brutal mirror to society and asks: do the love and traditions of love that society provides you really satisfy you or are you just going along with it because you don’t think you deserve better?
Wicker could be interpreted as a metaphor for modern dating, the dangers of gossip, or just plain old sexual repression. And probably more. It’s a really smart script that never misses a chance to poke at our own society full of unexpressed domestic isolation and frustration and suggests that maybe the only solution is casting off your social baggage and finding the love that’s right for you. No matter what anybody else has to say about it. This is one of the best surprises of the year and if you don’t think you’ll like it you’re probably wrong. I think everybody should take a chance on Wicker.
Rating: Loved It
Wicker is currently in theaters.
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