A lonely fisherwoman who smells of her catch, a village that mocks her, and a basket weaver who agrees to make her a husband out of willow. Wicker, adapted by writer-directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson from Ursula Wills-Jones’s short story “The Wicker Husband”, sounds like a fairy tale, and it is, albeit one with a filthy sense of humour.
It is a strange, funny and often touching film, carried by Olivia Colman at her most fearless. It does not quite know where to go once its wonderful premise is established, but there is nothing else like it this autumn.
Wicker is a bawdy, beautiful oddity about loneliness, gossip and a man woven from willow.
Movie at a Glance
- UK and Ireland cinemas: 30 October 2026
- US cinemas: 23 October 2026 (select cinemas), expanding 30 October
- Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes
- Directors: Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson
- Screenplay: Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, from the short story by Ursula Wills-Jones
- Starring: Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Dinklage, Elizabeth Debicki, Nabhaan Rizwan and Richard E. Grant
- Music: Anna Meredith
- Cinematography: Lol Crawley
- Distributor: Black Bear
- Genre: Romantic fantasy comedy
Viewer Match
- Best for: Olivia Colman fans and lovers of earthy, Pythonesque folk tales with a romantic heart.
- Maybe skip if: Crude humour puts you off, or you need a story that builds steadily to its ending.
- Mood and pace: Raucous, rustic and whimsical, with tender pauses between the jokes.
- Cinema or streaming? Either works, though the handsome period craft looks lovely on a big screen.
- Spoiler level: Spoiler-free: only the premise.
A Husband Made to Order
In an unnamed medieval village, Colman’s fisherwoman is a pariah, mocked for her smell and her refusal to play the marriage game. She is content alone, until a silly village ritual and a lot of sneering push her into an act of defiance: she commissions the local master basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband.
The creation, played by Alexander Skarsgård beneath a lattice of elegantly woven willow, is gentle, devoted and incapable of a lie, and the fisherwoman experiences tenderness for the first time. The village, naturally, does not know what to make of it.
Colman and Skarsgård Make It Work
Colman dirties her face and her frock and plays the outcast with gusto, never asking for pity. The early scenes between her and her wicker husband are the heart of the film, tender and almost shy, and Skarsgård does a lot with very little, conveying warmth through stillness and posture.
Dinklage gets a run of florid monologues as the craftsman, Elizabeth Debicki is sly as the tailor’s gossiping wife, and Richard E. Grant pops up as a gloriously useless village doctor.
Rude, Rowdy and Occasionally Wobbly
The filmmakers treat the villagers with a Monty Python-ish irreverence, and the humour is bawdy throughout, poking fun at superstition, conformity and the institution of marriage. Much of it is very funny.
Where the film wobbles is the second act. The plot needs the fisherwoman to doubt her devoted husband, and her shifts in attitude feel convenient rather than earned. The fable’s moral becomes fuzzier as a result, and Anna Meredith’s jaunty score sometimes pushes a little too hard.
A Fable for Our Times
Still, there is something timely about a story of falling for a partner who is not quite human, and Fischer and Wilson handle it with real affection. Lol Crawley’s photography gives the village a lived-in, storybook texture, and the central romance lingers in the mind long after the gags have faded.
Spoiler-Free Verdict
Wicker is a bawdy, inventive and unexpectedly tender adult fairy tale, with Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård making an unforgettable couple. A wobbly second act and a muddled moral hold it back, but its strange charm is hard to resist.
- Performances: 8.5/10
- Direction: 7.5/10
- Screenplay: 6.5/10
- Score: 6.5/10
- Cinematography: 8/10
- Entertainment Value: 7.5/10
- Overall score: 7.5/10
Star rating: 3.5/5
Verdict badge: One for Fans
One-line verdict: A rude, tender and wonderfully odd fable, held together by Colman’s fearless heart.
Watch the Official Trailer
The official trailer may reveal more than this spoiler-free review.
Would you trust a husband woven from willow? Tell Movieversalfilm what you made of Wicker’s strange romance.