Nocturnal 
Olivia Colman says nothing in her career has prepared her for the reaction to her new film Wicker, a fantasy rom-com about a lonely fisherwoman who falls for a husband made entirely of woven wood.
Speaking to the BBC at the film’s London Film Festival premiere, the Oscar winner said the flood of memes and jokes sweeping social media was completely new territory. “No, literally this has never happened for anything I’ve done before,” she said. “But you put Alexander Skarsgård in an interesting outfit, and everyone is looking.”
Wicker tells the story of Colman’s character, a smelly, ostracised fisherwoman in a medieval village who is mocked for being single. Fed up with the ridicule, she hires a basketmaker, played by Peter Dinklage, to craft her a partner. What arrives is a strapping, life-size “wicker husband” played by Skarsgård, who turns out to be devoted, passionate, and a source of jealousy among the other village women.
The film is based on Ursula Wills-Jones’s short story The Wicker Husband, and also stars Elizabeth Debicki as a rival village woman and Richard E Grant as the local doctor.
Why it matters
Since the trailer dropped, Wicker has become one of the most talked-about films of the autumn, driven almost entirely by online reaction rather than traditional marketing. Fans on TikTok have swooned over Skarsgård’s character, while others have joked about the practicalities, and risks, of a romance with a man made of wicker. Swedish retailer IKEA even got in on the joke, posting photos of its rattan furniture on Instagram with the caption “husband material”.
Debicki, who also appears in the film, agrees the costume is doing most of the heavy lifting. “I think it was a lot to do with Alex in a wicker man costume, really,” she told the BBC, adding it was “something that apparently everybody would like to see”. Skarsgård himself credited the costume designers, telling the BBC: “All I had to do was get stuck into it.”
Colman, speaking to the IBTimes, said the appeal goes beyond the novelty factor. “We all love a little bit of escapism,” she said. “That’s what film is beautiful for… it’s magical, and a bit of fantasy, and people love that, especially currently.” She added that the originality of the script is what drew her to the role in the first place, saying she had never read anything quite like it before.
The film has split critics since its earlier Sundance premiere. The Telegraph gave it just one star, calling it “a mortifying adult fairy tale”, while the Guardian’s review praised its ambition but found the tonal mix “uneven”. The Times, by contrast, awarded four stars, singling out Colman’s performance as “astonishing”.
What happens next
On a recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Colman joked about filming the film’s more intimate scenes with Skarsgård, saying she was “lucky” to avoid splinters despite “lots of vigorous love making”. Skarsgård has described the shoot as “super fun”, noting that scenes where the couple’s bed breaks beneath them bring both comedy and tenderness.
Wicker is now heading towards a wider UK cinema release following its London Film Festival premiere, with audiences likely to keep the meme machine running regardless of the mixed reviews.
