Wicker takes place in a world that seems entirely constructed out of the ways it is a fable, an allegory, and, above all else, a very funny comedy about very naughty things. The village in which writers/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson’s film is set quite obviously does not exist on Earth, and the main giveaway here is the local Basketmaker (Peter Dinklage), who can weave anything from the spun-together wood shavings of the title. A fisherwoman (Olivia Colman), undervalued by and within her community (even by the standards of this particular village, which is saying something), wishes for the maker of baskets to weave her a husband.
The film is a fable, because the screenplay here (based on a 2008 short story by Ursula Wills) holds the quality of a bedtime story that might as well begin with “once upon a time.” In this village, the dynamic between men and women belongs to the type of overt patriarchy that is both a reflection of the days of old and a funhouse-mirror directed upon them, if only because they are so comically presented. Men and women marry because that is what is expected of both, which is a grave truth about our own collective cultural past, but the ceremony involves the clasping of a chastity belt around the neck of the woman and the odd employment of another kind of belt, as well as a suggestively placed carrot, for the man.
This is simply the way of things, understood and practiced by all, in defiance of the obvious silliness of it and even the sometimes deadly consequences (it seems that every woman is doomed to die in childbirth, for instance, while the local doctor, played by Richard E. Grant, is wholly inadequate in his practice). These people, by the way, do not have actual names, Christian or otherwise, which is just as well for the fisherwoman, the basketmaker, and the tailor’s wife (Elizabeth Debicki), who seems to have imbalanced political power in town in spite of being a woman with the same expectations placed upon her as everyone else. Her husband the tailor (Nabhaan Rizwan) is a dreadfully boring man who, it is clear, would much rather his wife remain quiet and unassuming.
The incident of the plot here is the marriage of the tailor’s wife’s sister (Marli Siu) to the local bottlewasher (Gustav Lindh), which prompts immediate questions about when a baby is due to complete the union in the near future. The fisherwoman, who is as plain as they come and—because of the smell that accompanies her occupation—considerable ineligible for companionship by most in the town, visits the basketmaker and makes that wish, which is arrives at her house but a month later. He’s the wicker husband, played by Alexander Skarsgård in the performance of a thing literally born yesterday.
Their relationship and eventual marriage obviously causes a spider’s-web of gossip around town, and this is also where the film’s naughtiness comes into play. The wicker husband is, well, built for a specific type of marital pleasure, which initially belongs only to the fisherwoman but eventually becomes the stuff of envy and covetousness. He regales, with no ego on account of no humanity, the stories of their lovemaking and the constant need to repair their bed, until all the women in town—including the tailor’s wife, her unfulfilled sister, and the wife (Ella Bruccoleri) of the local baker (Ben Ashenden)—want a real-world demonstration of his stories.
The film is also allegorical, then, in the way it becomes about a society in which the progression toward a kind of sexual and relational openness pops the bubble of a particularly conservative village. It isn’t as straightforward as some switch flipping and the women seeking more from their husbands and their life, either. It’s in smaller increments, such as how one wife realizes just how boring, how overly protective, and how much of a blustering drunk her husband will be, when she’s forced to sit next to him in the middle of the town square and in perfect view of everyone else who will judge her.
Mostly, though, the film is simply very funny in a raunchy way that will delight fans of dark humor, risqué jokes, and all the trappings that arrive with this fundamentally absurd premise and the even more absurd setting. That doesn’t mean it loses its political edge or its sincerity, as the union between the fisherwoman and her newly constructed lover becomes unstable with the newfound attention upon the both of them. It simply means that these performances, in collaboration with the barbed wit of the dialogue, acknowledge the absurdity and the edge by imbuing everything with an attitude that befits them.
If the movie is all these things—a fable, an allegory, and a raunchy comedy—that might also mean it doesn’t dig too deeply into its ideas, at least until a final ten or so minutes that work to pay more than lip service to them. That doesn’t matter when the results are as idiosyncratic and, again, as funny as Wicker can and consistently proves to be.
Rating: *** (out of ****)
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