WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

In a medieval community where everyone is referred to by their profession, the local Fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) is somewhat of an outsider. She certainly doesn’t fit in with the gossiping Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki), the Bakerwoman (Ella Bruccoleri) and the Innkeeper’s Wife (Emily Lloyd-Saini).

When a local ritual predicts that she’ll be the next to marry, apart from the local drunk, none of the menfolk is interested in the Fisherwoman and she has no designs on any of them anyway, so she pays the local Basketmaker (Peter Dinklage) a visit and asks him to weave her a husband.

A month later, her Wicker Husband (Alexander Skarsgård) meets her at the church and life in the village is changed forever.

For the first time in her life, the Fisherwoman knows love, while the other wives are jealous and their husbands know it.

The wives can’t just let the Fisherwoman be happy – they start rumours around the village that her husband has been more than a little friendly with some of the other women. And when a widow turns up with a wicker baby, the Fisherwoman has no choice but to question her husband’s fidelity.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

Wicker is an unassuming fable that creeps up on you and catches you unawares.

It’s a simple moral tale about learning to love and trust – the tension between being idiosyncratic and confirming to societal norms – and being careful what you wish for.

Many of the story elements are signposted well in advance and while there are plenty of twists and turns, they’re rarely surprising, but the film is constantly engaging, not least because of its darkly comic undertones.

Olivia Colman’s shift from not caring about what anyone else thinks to paranoia is frighteningly believable, while Alexander Skarsgård has an element of Frankenstein’s Monster to him, a towering freak, whose only purpose in life is to love the Fisherwoman – and carry out a bit of DIY around the house.

The other village folk are a mixture of devious plotters (such as Elizabeth Debicki’s Tailor’s Wife), slavish followers (including Ella Bruccoleri’s Bakerwoman), passive background characters (like Nabhaan Rizwan’s Tailor) and Peter Dinklage’s Basket Maker himself – even more of an outsider than the Fisherwoman herself – who keeps a step ahead of everyone else with his peculiar, unspoken gift.

Wicker is a fantasy fable, whose originality, thought-provoking moralising, sense of natural justice and underlying warmth ensure that it works far better than it should.