Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård star in ‘Wicker.’ (Photo courtesy of Black Bear Pictures/Roadshow Films)
What if there were magic in the world, and it could give us the power to attain the things we long for in this life?
That’s the question we are asked to contemplate in “Wicker,” the new film from co-writer/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, which adapts Ursula Witts’ short story “The Wicker Husband” into a feature-length fable; transporting us to the timeless “olden days” of fairy tales and fantasies, it’s a tale of longing, love, and the power of intention, set in a small village on the edge of the forest where an aging Fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) sells her daily catch to the townsfolk who ostracize her for her lowly trade and the fishy odors that go along with it.
Tired of her lonely existence, the Fisherwoman goes to the town’s Basket Maker (Peter Dinklage) — another community outsider, known for his skill and for a certain “witchy” ability to endow his creations with purpose — and pays him to make her a husband. He delivers on the deal, providing her with a man made of wicker (Alexander Skarsgård) who claims that he exists solely to love her. The arrangement quickly turns out to be better than she imagined, bringing not just companionship but comfort and joy into her once-isolated life. When the townspeople meet the Wicker Husband, however, they are unsettled by his presence; his care and devotion to the Fisherwoman allows her to blossom, and their happiness begins to spark jealousy and dissatisfaction among the other wives and husbands in the town. Unhappy with the change in the status quo, the Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki), the de facto keeper of the town’s social order, sets out to eliminate the problem as she is herself unhappy with her domestic situation. She sets about to correct the imbalance by sowing the seeds of mistrust.
Shot in a lush and evocative style by cinematographer Lol Crawley, “Wicker” succeeds in capturing the primal mysticism of nature that pervades in so many of the folk tales and forest myths of the pagan past, as well as satisfying more “sophisticated” modern tastes with a sense of self-aware irony — and a considerable amount of whimsical-yet-bawdy imagination. Yet the “weird” ways of a bygone age are granted new potency by tapping into contemporary awareness of gender and social inequality, while a subtle focus on the real-life “magical” power of words implies their ability to alter our perceptions and influence our actions.
Indeed, words (or rather, the power of words) are a key element in the story’s darkly humorous parable. Language — and the intention with which it is used — takes on a decidedly important role in the story; from the simple sincerity of the Wicker Husband’s stolid declarations of adoration toward his wife to the tactical deployment of misinformation in an effort to assert power over non-conformity, and even to the subtle conveyance of nuance between the lines to reveal key elements that otherwise go unspoken. Spoiler alert: queer audiences can score bonus points by counting the spoken clues that Dinklage’s Basket Maker — who, with his occult knowledge and mysterious talents, serves as the architect of the entire narrative — is gay.
None of which is to say that “Wicker” comes off as being “talky” or depends merely on words to convey its story; on the contrary, Fischer and Wilson provide an immersive, fully-realized world for the setting of their Brothers Grimm-ish fantasy, along with a strong sense of visual storytelling that conveys a great deal without relying on words at all. Sometimes, it’s an economy of language that makes the strongest impact, understatement that delivers the deepest meaning, and silence that speaks volumes, and this is a film that knows how to utilize all those approaches; more than that, it knows how to employ understatement, letting a “less is more” simplicity govern the proceedings and relying on the skills of the performers to convey volumes within dialogue that feels deceptively simple.
In fact, it could be argued that the greatest strength of “Wicker” comes from its cast, who from bottom to top capture the rarified combination of tones — the inscrutable wisdom, the fantastical whimsy, the earthy humor, and the observational candor — in its presentation of human social mechanisms, even through its fairy-tale lens, to provide a smart, winning, and unexpectedly profound piece of entertaining cinematic myth-making. Colman is, as always, endearing in her down-to-earth willingness to fully inhabit her character, giving the Fisherwoman’s transformation from curmudgeonly misanthrope to fully-actualized woman in command of her own power a tangibly authentic ring; Skarsgård, his hunky, handsome form coming through despite being obscured through the remarkably well-realized cinema magic that weaves it under a wooden skin, has never been more effective, nor more romantically appealing; Dinklage manifests the charming trickster with a kind of noble integrity as the Basket Weaver, and the rest of the cast and the remainder of the cast embody the frailty and foibles of the various townspeople with as much compassion as possible in a story that is ultimately about the tendency of human society to conform with — and enforce — an unbalanced social “norm” over its own better nature.
In the end, “Wicker” resolves with the kind of darkly ironic “comeuppance” that feels apropos of the Halloween season, with trickster magic balancing the scales and the townsfolk getting exactly what they deserve in a deliciously ironic — and wickedly macabre — reversal of fortune dictated by karma itself (with a little help from the Basket Maker), making it a cautionary tale in exactly the spirit of esoteric irony that defines all the classic fables we know while adding a kind of modern savvy to the mix that somehow drives the point home even more obviously and effectively.
It’s smart, infused with the kind of magic that feels natural instead of supernatural, and it reminds us that human society is never to be entirely trusted. For us, that makes “Wicker” one of the most delicious surprises of the film year so far, and earns it a hearty recommendation for anyone who enjoys a little Wiccan magic with their romantic fantasies, if only for the sake of feeling that there is an order to things that keeps us all in balance.
Whether or not that’s actually true, it’s the belief itself that makes it feel that way —- and “Wicker,” with all its shrewd-and-subtle messaging under the guise of pure fantasy, makes us willing to believe.
The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaAssociation.com.
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