By Dan Skip Allen

“Wicker” is based on a short story called “The Wicker Husband” by Ursula Willis-Jones and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January before playing at the BFI Festival this month before its wide theatrical release. It’s written/directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson. It’s a fantasy/comedy satire with some romantic elements thrown in for good measure. It got good word of mouth out of Sundance, mainly for its makeup and hairstyling.  Which is said to be Academy Awards worthy. After finally seeing the movie, I concur with that sentiment. It has its hands full with Robert Eggers “Werewulf” but I definitely think it will get nominated. 

The fisher woman (Olivia Colman) is a sad lady. She does her job and goes into town, of the seaside English village that she lives in to sell her fish. She’s picked on by the other woman in town because she’s a homely type. Mainly the tailor’s wife (Elizabeth Debecki) who isn’t happy in her own life, so she picks on this older single woman. After going to a wedding of the bottle washer and the doctors second daughter (Marli Siu) the fisher woman decides to go to the basket Weaver (Peter Dinklage) to ask him if he can make her a husband. He says to meet him in a month at the chapel. And there she finds a tall, handsome wicker man (Alexander Skarsgard) who she marries. Very shortly after that, they go to her house and consummate the marriage by having sex which breaks the bed. This is the beginning of a beautiful marriage for a little while. Nothing lasts forever, especially when people are sad and jealous. This was an original story for me, but there is a great message on here from the writers.

This film has an amazing cast. First and foremost is Oscar winner Olivia Colman. She has been able to use her Oscar winning performance in “The Favorite” and parley it into some interesting roles in movies like “The Roses”, “Wicked Little Letters”, and “The Father”. Another great turn for her is in this film. She balances her performance with a mix of comedy and drama. She’s not taking the role too seriously, even though it could be perceived that way to some. It’s definitely a highwire act for her, but she’s used to that by now. I’ve been a fan of hers for years now, and this is another terrific performance by her. And she’s elevated by this incredible ensemble. 

Another award winning actor in the cast is Peter Dinklage. The writers give him some incredible dialogue where he is rhyming or doing some sort of poetry. Maybe a mix of both. This is the best thing I’ve seen him do since “Game of Thrones.” I understand he didn’t want to get typecast into certain roles, so he took roles in “The Toxic Avenger” and other subpar films, but he is amazing here using this great dialogue. I loved him in “X-Men: Days of Future Past”, and recently in “The Lowdown” opposite Ethan Hawke in the neo noir series on FX/Hulu. These are examples of him doing different things, but he’s giving a good performance in both. I loved him in this movie. I hope he continues to pick interesting but good projects like this one to act in.

Elizabeth Debecki is another alum of “The Crown”. Both she and Colman won Emmys for that Netflix series. Here, she plays into her nature of being a bad woman even though she’s played some good woman in her career. I think she plays a bad guy/girl better than a good person. Here, she is jealous of the Colman character because she’s miserable in her own marriage. She’s stuck at home cooking, cleaning, and raising a family when she wants to be with her husband at work being seen by people in the big city. This is a mundane life for her, and she takes her frustrations out on the fisher woman played by Colman. She is perfectly fine in this role, and you can tell she’s loving every minute she is on screen as this character.

The shining light of this film is the man who is playing the Wicker Man, and that’s Alexander Skarsgard. He is covered head to toe in some of the most incredible makeup and hairstyling I’ve seen all year. This definitely deserves an Academy Award nomination. I loved “The Ugly Stepsister” last year, and it got the nomination, so hopefully, another little indie film will get it as well. Skarsgard is doing some very subtle work here in this movie. He’s not over the top or anything like that. He’s letting the makeup and script dictate his performance. Like the others, he’s doing a fantastic job here, and he lets the story and other performances help him do his part.

A few technical things in the movie that were pretty good were the production design, the cinematography, and the score. I loved the Quaint Little village and the main house the movie took place in. These worked very well with the story. The cinematography by Lol Crawley was beautiful. There were a few camera angles and visual choices that gave the film a distinct look that was different from other movies. Of all of these technical aspects, the score was my favorite one. There is a nice sound to the music that I haven’t heard in anything like this music before in a film. There were some playful sounds and some serious themes in the score. This score was like another character in the movie; it was distinctly noticeable. 

There is a near and present message about marriage and relationships in this picture. Love is a key theme as well. Not having experienced a lot of this in my lifetime myself, it was hard for me to relate to the domestic problems these people had. That being said, I’ve been around a lot of married couples in my lifetime. Starting with my parents, family, friends, and co-workers. They all have had issues in their relationships or been divorced at one time. It can’t be easy trying to find love and keeping it these days, let alone in a colonial era seaside village in England. The writer/directors captured these elements of love and the difficulties that go along with it perfectly well. In a satirical fashion. I’m just glad I’m not married or in a relationship because I wouldn’t know what to do to make a woman happy these days. 

“Wicker” was a funny satirical look at relationships and domestic bliss or lack of it. The script does a job of showing how difficult marriage and love can be to deal with. I loved all the performances from the four main actors I mentioned, but the entire cast was great in this. The technical aspects, including the production design, cinematography, and score, are all terrific. The makeup and hairstyling though is awards worthy. Hopefully, it will get an Oscar nomination next year because it’s that good. Overall, this was a good movie with some great messages about love and finding ways to keep your significant other happy. Hopefully, this will translate to an audience seeing it.

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 stars