Colman radiant in well-woven romance

There have been wicker-related films before. The Wicker Man from 1973 is a classic of folk horror. This bawdy, rowdy outing is more of a folk sex-comedy.

Adapted from a story by Ursula Wills by filmmakers Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer, Wicker is sometimes overly obvious in its satirical messaging. But like the wicker creation at its centre, Wilson and Fischer’s unexpected world is nicely crafted, the wonderful Olivia Colman weaving it all together with radiant, raunchy directness and real vulnerability.

In this feminist fable, set in some vague, peasanty time and place, Colman plays the ostracized, isolated Fisherwoman. Fisherwoman is either ignored or bullied by her fellow villagers, and in a community where the women are known as “Innkeeper’s Wife” or “Doctor’s Daughter,” perhaps the worst insult hurled at her is “Spinster.”

After a magical omen is dropped by her feet at a village wedding, Fisherwoman goes to the Basketmaker (Peter Dinklage), who has his own reasons for living alone at the edge of town, and orders up a husband.

One month later, and the Wicker Husband is waiting at the altar. Played by Alexander Skarsgard in an astonishing wicker suit, he’s not just neat bit of work. He turns out to be a romantasy dream — a handy, loving husband who breaks the bed at night with his passion and then fixes it the next day.

The villagers speculate furiously about this new marriage. It’s not just that Wicker Husband is “tall as a tree and just as hard,” as one townswoman suggests. He’s also prone to offering his wife words, words and more words — “declarations of fondness,” says one of the men, in complete mystification.

As the Wicker Husband later explains, making his wife happy makes him happy, and vice versa, a seemingly revolutionary proposition that makes the town’s women envious and the men nervous, eventually throwing the close-minded community into sexual confusion and social chaos.

Fischer and Wilson, who also happen to be husband and wife, are playing around with romance tropes, sometimes sending them up, sometimes leaning into them with tender sincerity. This easygoing approach extends to the setting, where chamber pots and wattle-and-daub roofs mix it up with outbursts of modern language and attitudes.

There’s a bit of deadpan wit, a lot of broad, cheerfully filthy joking and even some slapstick comedy, often involving the peculiar folkways found in this little corner of the world. (Watch for a tricky matrimonial ritual that uses a carrot, a blindfold and a goat.)

The multi-character plotting slips easily from scene to scene, the tone sometimes satirical and sharp but never overly dark. Notable in a story in which a sentient being is brought to life by human will, there is none of the angst we see in Frankenstein or Frankenstein-adjacent adaptations such as Poor Things. The pragmatic Basketmaker approaches his work not as a crazed genius undone by hubris but as a master craftsman.

Basketmaker also declares the Wicker Husband must be “his own creature,” and Skarsgard takes him up on that. His performance, encased in prosthetics and special-effects makeup, is necessarily stiff, and his calm voice and startling blue eyes need to do a lot of work.

Still, he manages to give his wicker-bound character a surprising amount of smoulder — those long flax eyelashes! those broad wicker shoulders! — and a lot of soul, creating a man who is straightforward and sweet, if sometimes overly literal.

Elizabeth Debicki stands out as the Fisherwoman’s chief bully. She’s crisp and nasty, but we eventually see why. As daughter to the feckless town doctor (Richard E. Grant, always good at playing self-absorbed ninnies) and now wife to the tailor (Nabhaan Rizwan), she has become embittered by her knowledge that she could do both jobs better than her menfolk but will never be allowed to.

There are good minor parts, brought to brief life by reliable British character actors, but this is ultimately Fisherwoman’s story and Colman’s movie. The 52-year-old actor has played both flat-out comedy (Peep Show, Fleabag) and deepest drama (The Father, The Lost Daughter). Here she gets to treat her character’s later-in-life sexual awakening as both a glorious, goofy surprise and a serious emotional earthquake, exploring the full range of her considerable talent.

alison.gillmor@winnipegfreepress.com