Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgard make an enchanting—and extremely weird—romantic couple in Wicker, a bizarre romantic comedy directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson.
Living in a small old-timey village that looks a bit like the street where Eric Idle collected dead bodies in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a lonely fisherwoman (Colman) comes up with an idea on a lark: Get the local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband.
What starts out as a goof becomes semi-serious when a wicker effigy of Alexander Skargard shows up at the local chapel for his wedding day. Graced with a neat, patterned face, a strong and loving will, and all the proper equipment, he turns out to be the perfect husband. He fixes things; he performs his nightly duties; and he becomes the talk of the town.
Intentionally or not, the movie winds up working as a modern-day satire of social media and AI—sort of a medieval take on a movie like Spike Jonze’s Her. The film plays with the notion of somebody being completely OK, and even totally in love, with an artificial friend. It’s consistently funny and perhaps a little deeper than it seems at first glance.
Colman, as always, shines in the lead role, with Skarsgard managing to seem like himself and delivering great emotion despite being covered in prosthetics.
Wētā Workshop actually put his costume together, with only a dash of CGI here and there. It’s a nice achievement. Dinklage has just a few scenes, but he delivers them with Shakespearean eloquence.
It’s one of the year’s best romantic comedies, and one of the funnier movies in a year that hasn’t been very funny.