In oddball rom-com “Wicker,” the husband is a catch but the story unravels

Wicker

Starring Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Elizabeth Debicki and Peter Dinklage. Written and directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson. Now playing in theatres everywhere. 105 minutes. 14A

⭐️⭐️1/2 (out of 4)

Peter Howell

Movie Critic

This most Sundance-y of the Sundance 2026 premieres, finally coming to theatres, is an acting and special effects showcase but a screenwriters’ misfire.

Olivia Colman delights as an odiferous fisherwoman, shunned by her rude and cruel fellow villagers, who conscripts the magical local basketmaker (Peter Dinklage) to craft her a husband out of wicker, a hunky creation empathetically played by Alexander Skarsgård. Elizabeth Debicki adds brio as the jealous and meddling tailor’s wife, who is out to disable this fable.

The trouble is that this made-to-order mate makes the village’s flesh-and-blood husbands look bad. He fixes up the fisherwoman’s home, handles the housework and, judging by the sounds echoing across the village at night, leaves little to complain about in the marital bed. She catches the fish; he proves quite the catch.

The other wives take notice, which does nothing for harmony in a community already inclined to begrudge anybody a good time. The tailor’s wife finds a particularly nasty way to interfere: give a woman who finally has someone to love a reason to wonder whether she can trust him.

But the story by writers-directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson creaks uneasily between rom-com, fairy tale and outright horror, which fails to make the most of the talent on display — although the film weirdly almost works as a prequel to “The Wicker Man.”