‘Wicker’ review: Olivia Colman’s weird wooden romcom is 2026’s most bizarre film

The trick neatly pulled off by Wicker is that it feels – in tone, texture, speech and rhythms – similar to a Grimms’ fairy tale or something else from centuries past. In fact, the source is Ursula Wills-Jones’ 2008 short story The Wicker Husband – and no, it has nothing to do with classic folk-horror The Wicker Man. Here, there are no sacrifices or missing girls on a remote Scottish island. Rather, we’re in a (possibly) medieval village in England, although the time and place are distinctly fudged by directors Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston.

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It’s an environment expertly realised by the film’s costume and make-up teams as well as production designer Renátó Cseh, who previously did that other quirky period fable Poor Things. You can practically smell the stench of this pre-industralised world through the screen. Everyone in Wicker is known by their lot in life and at the centre of this film is Olivia Colman’s Fisherwoman. She’s quite happy as a singleton though has to live out in the forest because of the rather pungent, fishy aroma that clings to her. The other women in the village increasingly tease her about her bachelorette status until one day, she decides to reverse this spiteful trend.

Rather than pursue a man, she decides to build one. Well, she commissions the Basket Weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make one. Within a few days, he presents his creation: a wicker man played by Alexander Skarsgård and designed by The Lord Of The Rings special effects gurus at Weta, complete with wooden nipples. He’s devoted, well-spoken and as handsome as a buff Skarsgård made of willow can be. He’s unlike most of the ropey husbands in this patriarchal society and Colman’s Fisherwoman soon falls for him, helped by some impressive physical chemistry that results in the pair literally breaking the bed.

Despite his wicker appendage, it turns out he’s a sensitive lover – and this is where Wicker has its fun. It’s a saucy, bawdy romp with lots of nudge-nudge jokes about nookie. It’s like a Monty Python sketch in that regard. Of course, others in the village don’t take to him. Elizabeth Debicki as the Tailor’s Wife is particularly perturbed by his arrival. She just about restrains herself from shouting “witchcraft”. It’s one of the strange things about the film – in an era where superstition was rife, nobody bats an eyelid at a walking, talking wooden man.

Wicker is undoubtedly fun and fresh-feeling, delivering a clever riff on the institution of marriage. Colman is handed one of her best roles since her Oscar-winning Queen Anne in 2018’s The Favourite. Likewise, the idiosyncratic nature of Skarsgård’s career continues following his turn in 2025’s S&M biker tale Pillion. Unfortunately, despite the blossoming romance between the two, the story doesn’t contain enough momentum to push it beyond a Pinocchio-esque fable. The third act runs out of steam – despite an excellent final moment for Dinklage. Ultimately, Wicker skates along on its quirkiness, safe in the knowledge that it’s one of the more out there films of 2026.

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