There is a particular kind of silence that settles over a small coastal village when someone decides to stop apologizing for existing. In Eleanor Wilson’s new film Wicker, that silence is eventually broken by the sound of creaking branches and the gasps of scandalized neighbors. Released on October 21, 2026, this Hollywood production is a strange, salty, and deeply affectionate fable about loneliness, craftsmanship, and the radical act of building the love you deserve.
The film centers on the Fisherwoman, played with a fearless, unglamorous physicality by Olivia Colman. She is introduced to us as the village pariah: smelly, single, and perpetually ridiculed. She exists on the periphery of a community that defines itself by its rigid, small-minded conventions. Wilson, who directs with a sharp eye for the absurd, doesn't ask us to pity her. Instead, we watch as she reaches a breaking point. Fed up with the whispers, she commissions a husband made entirely of wicker.
This is where the film’s fantasy element pivots into a riotous comedy of manners. The basket weaver, a wonderfully weary Peter Dinklage, is initially baffled by the request. But the commission is fulfilled, and the Wicker Husband - embodied with a surprising, stoic tenderness by Alexander Skarsgård - arrives. He doesn't speak much, mostly because he is an inanimate object brought to life by cinematic magic, but his presence is deafening.
The supporting cast is as textured as the film's central metaphor. Elizabeth Debicki brings a brittle, simmering jealousy to the role of the Tailor’s Wife, who finds her own marriage lacking when compared to the Fisherwoman's silent, steady partner. Nabhaan Rizwan, as the Tailor, and Kiell Smith-Bynoe, as the Innkeeper, round out a village chorus that is hilarious in its pettiness. Richard E. Grant appears as the baffled Doctor, delivering a performance of medical bewilderment that grounds the film’s more fantastical impulses. Marli Siu, as the Basket Weaver's Sister, provides some of the film's more grounded emotional beats.
Wicker is not just a romance; it is a film about the economics of desire. The Fisherwoman pays for her husband. She commissions him. The transaction is what makes the romance so subversive in a town where everyone pretends their own relationships aren't transactions of convenience and social standing. The outrage that follows is rooted in the fact that she has made her loneliness explicit and public, and in doing so, she has made everyone else look at their own compromises.
As for the chemistry between Colman and Skarsgård, it should not work. One is a woman of flesh, sweat, and fury; the other is a man-shaped object of woven branches. Yet, Wilson directs them with a restraint that makes the romance feel unexpectedly real. Skarsgård is a marvel of physical comedy, using the rigid limitations of his body to convey a kind of stoic patience that is both absurd and deeply moving. Colman’s performance is a masterclass in vulnerability, her hardened exterior cracking open to reveal a woman who is terrified of the happiness she has constructed.
The film has struck a chord with audiences, earning a solid 6.5/10 on TMDb and a more enthusiastic 7.4/10 on IMDb. The critical response suggests that viewers are drawn to Wilson’s refusal to make this a simple fairy tale. The village isn’t won over by the end; the chaos doesn’t resolve into a neat, smiling tableau. Instead, the film asks its audience to sit with the discomfort of a woman who chooses to build her own partner rather than beg for the village’s acceptance.
At 105 minutes, Wicker avoids overstaying its welcome. It is a comedy, yes, but it is a comedy with a melancholic heart. It is a film about the things we make to fill the spaces that other people refuse to fill, and what happens when those creations are better than the people who mocked us. In a season crowded with loud, expensive spectacles, Wicker is a quiet, strange, and delightful little miracle. It reminds us that sometimes, the only way to find love is to wade into the mud, get your hands dirty, and weave it yourself.
