What if you could commission the perfect husband? That’s the wonderfully strange premise of “Wicker,” an audacious comedic fable starring Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Dinklage, and Elizabeth Debicki that earned enthusiastic reviews following its Sundance premiere earlier this year.
Written and directed by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer, the filmmaking duo behind “Save Yourselves!,” “Wicker” centers on an ostracized fisherwoman (Colman) relentlessly mocked by her neighbors for being unmarried. Eventually, she turns to the local basketmaker (Dinklage) and commissions him to create a husband. The result is the Wicker Husband (Skarsgård), whose arrival sparks desire, jealousy, fascination, and considerable upheaval throughout the village.
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And yes, Skarsgård apparently found the role he was born to play.
“My dream was always to have nipples made out of wicker,” Skarsgård joked to Entertainment Weekly this week, crediting Wilson, Fischer, and the artists at Wētā Workshop with finally making that ambition a reality.
The Wicker Husband was created almost entirely practically, with Skarsgård performing inside an elaborate suit designed and built by Wētā. That presented some unusual logistical challenges given that the film doesn’t shy away from the physical side of its central romance. Wilson and Fischer told EW that the intimate scenes required extensive preparation, with shots planned, rehearsed, and revised in advance around the limitations—and possibilities—of the wicker costume.
Colman was immediately drawn to her character’s refusal to conform. “She’s the only one not toeing the line,” the actress told EW, while also praising Wilson and Fischer’s screenplay as unusually original and Skarsgård’s transformation as essential to making the romance work.
Adapted from Ursula Wills’ short story “The Wicker Husband,” the film uses that bizarre courtship to explore sex, marriage, desire, and the absurdity of social conventions. Debicki plays the Tailor’s Wife, one of the villagers particularly unsettled by the Fisherwoman’s increasingly enviable new relationship.
Behind the camera, Academy Award winner Lol Crawley (“The Brutalist”) serves as cinematographer; Renátó Cseh handled production design; András Dániel Tóth and Attila Godena-Juhász designed the costumes; and Anna Meredith (“Eighth Grade”) composed the score.
Black Bear will release “Wicker” in limited theaters on October 23, 2026, before expanding nationwide on October 30. Watch the trailer below.
