Why would a love story disrupt a village ecosystem? Wicker, based on a 2008 short story by Ursula Willis-Jones, follows an ugly fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) who asks the local basketweaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband out of wicker (Alexander Skarsgård). Much like Beauty and the Beast (1991), the unconventionality of the male partner could play a part in the community’s unrest, but the cold judgment of the busybody townspeople is the true culprit.

The Fisherwoman and the Wicker Husband are named differently from the rest of the town, whose names are based on the men’s occupations ( the male tailor is called “Tailor,” the tailor’s wife is called “Tailor’s Wife”). The Wicker Husband’s handiness around the house and passion for pleasing his wife are revolutionary in this town of male weaponized incompetence. The women look on with jealousy and lust for the Wicker Husband, as the men look on with disgust and frustration that their wives’ eyes have strayed.

While the short story hails from 20 years ago, the film’s arrival in 2026 feels fitting as the cultural chasm between men and women appears to be growing wider every day. A certain dinner table conversation in the recent documentary sensation You Can See Everything perfectly illustrates this, with a dynamic my fellow women and I are oh-so-familiar with: going toe-to-toe with someone whose political and worldly perspectives differ so vastly from yours that your responses fall on deaf ears. Perhaps these men are somewhere writing a piece on 4Chan saying the same is true in reverse.

On the surface of Wicker’s story, I’m quick to make the clickbait claim: Women don’t want men. We want a sentient basket who is compassionate, loving, resourceful, and sexy. This theme rings true across fantasy stories: women write about a fictional man that’s otherworldly, a vampire faerie phantom beast with excellent listening ears and sexual dexterity. But does digging deeper into this sentiment excuse real men from having to rise to the occasion? All of the best qualities of the Wicker Husband are plausible in reality. But they are so elusive in modern dating that we resort to hyperbole to categorize this perfect partner as fantasy.

The film even clarifies that although the Wicker Husband says things like, “You are the only reason that I live and breathe,” (hot) and, “I was made to be with you,” the Basketweaver designed him to be fully his own and make his own decisions. The Wicker Husband has true, organic love for the Fisherwoman, rather than some form of robotic servitude.

In the wake of a bleak news cycle surrounding the Cornell case and a misogynistic SNL monologue, the Wicker Husband is a breath of fresh air. He is kind and gentle, never rageful or condescending. But in the bedroom and with housing repairs, he takes charge. Being a good listener doesn’t make him a doormat in other areas; he doesn’t need to be nagged to care for or connect with his partner. Like the great Marcello Hernandez says in his stand-up special American Boy (2026), “All women want is for you to listen to her, be there for her, and memorize the names of her friends.”

The Wicker Husband reverses the typically female trope: “Born Sexy Yesterday.” In stories like Enchanted (2007) or Ex Machina (2014), a woman is infantilized while a man gets the pleasure of teaching her about the world, drawn to her naivete. Instead of a lost himbo, the Wicker Husband is a grown man who simply never experienced the negative patriarchal socialization of his male village counterparts. He doesn’t understand why they speak about their wives the way they do because he loves his wife. He fixes things because, “It makes her happy. And then I am happy. And then the bed is broken again.” What a pleasant existence.

One other intriguing exploration in Wicker is the Baker and the Baker’s Wife dynamic. Unlike the other couples, they manage to end their sexual dry spell by embracing the Baker’s Wife’s lust for the Wicker Husband, via having the Baker roleplay as him. The pair even allude to wanting a Wicker Wife as their third sexual partner, implying her queerness and their open-mindedness as a pair. It’s a very Samantha Jones proposition for the culture: What if we mixed things up in ways that worked for us instead of doubling down on repression and judgment? What if we let our freak flags fly?

As Sara Ciplickas notes in her Sundance review, it’s refreshing to see a story with “a flawed woman, an older woman, and an untrusting woman.” I’ll go a step further and say a woman who isn’t a size 0. Now, go forth, eat food, and don’t settle for a man that is passive, whose indecision is painfully unattractive.

Essay Courtesy of Risa Bolash

Feature Image Credit to Black Bear