Adelaide Film Festival review: Wicker
Premiering as part of Adelaide Film Festival, Adelaide director Eleanor Wilson pairs Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård in a kookily but well-woven rom com.
Many argue that a lack of sex within a marriage does not necessarily signify its demise, but apparently in 1600s England, good sex is the glue – or at least the woven-together willow rods – that holds a relationship together. Wicker’s premise is quirky, kooky and slightly cloying, but it does offer an irreverent exploration of the disappointments of a mundane life, and the pitfalls of envy and masculine insecurity.
The unconventional romantic comedy stars Olivia Colman as an ostracised – and smelly – Fisherwoman, who is overcome with romantic desire after witnessing yet another couple in town getting hitched. So, she does what any level-headed individual would do, and asks the town basket weaver to make her a husband, to which the basket weaver, played by Peter Dinklage responds, “Be at the chapel in a month”. This is the comedic tone throughout the film, which comes from the directing duo – and real-life married couple – of Adelaide-raised Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer, where lines like “lick my worm” casually roll off the characters’ tongues.
The Wicker Man, in a sophisticated physical performance by Alexander Skarsgård, proves very sexually satisfying for the Fisherwoman, but equally as tender, romantic – and quite the handyman, sending the women of the town into spirals of horniness, while their husbands seethe with jealousy.
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Wicker is filled with laughs for its entire run, keeping up this heightened tone through its off-beat pacing, string-driven score and sharp script. The novel premise and sex are front-loaded in the film – and despite what the trailer may have led us to believe, the movie is not filled with as many bed-breaking scenes as expected (especially for viewers desensitised by the raunchier likes of Bridgerton and Heated Rivalry). However, the film exhibits a poignant emotional through line between its two lovers, even if that through line is momentarily broken by an unnecessary misunderstanding towards the end of the film, with the only purpose is to create a frustrating conflict between the two lovers.
The perpetually magnetic Elizabeth Debicki plays Tailor’s Wife (yes, every character’s name is their job title), who, after witnessing the tenderness and equality she sees between the Wicker Man and Fisherwoman, begins to look in on her own marriage where her husband merely sees her as a beautiful woman who raises his kids and shows off his tailoring skills off around the town. Debicki’s performance of the town’s “mean girl” is sympathetic and non-judgemental, portraying the character with nuance and pathos – revealing herself to be a rather tragic figure, and the film’s most compelling character, even if not enough time is spent on her.
Wicker posits that good sex is the driving force of a healthy relationship, but trust and equality are what keeps it on its tracks. In a cinematic landscape where theatrically released rom coms are few and far between, Wicker may be on the more eccentric side, but it still packs the laughs and emotional tenderness desired from the genre.
Wicker screened as part of the 2026 Adelaide Film Festival
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