WICKER Review: What About the Basketmaker?

I watched WICKER on Sunday, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I watched.

It’s essentially a Mother Goose story about a basket having sex with a woman who smells bad. That’s the premise. Olivia Colman plays a fisherwoman who is tired of being lonely and ridiculed by the people in her village, so she visits the local basketmaker, played by Peter Dinklage, and asks him to make her a husband.

And he does.

He makes her a man out of wicker, who looks remarkably like Alexander Skarsgård, and apparently this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in this particular village. Nobody seems especially concerned with how a basketmaker managed to manufacture a fully functioning human being. He just does it, and off we go.

I have to admit, I chuckled through a good portion of WICKER. It’s a ridiculous movie, and I don’t necessarily mean that as a criticism. There’s something amusing about watching an entire village take this extraordinary situation so seriously. The film has a sort of adult Munchkinland quality to it, like a fairy tale in which everyone should be singing but has instead developed an unhealthy obsession with marriage and sex.

And then there’s the basketmaker. Oh, I love this guy.

Dinklage plays him with such wonderful simplicity that I almost expected him to break into song. Somebody needs a husband? He’ll make a husband. Somebody needs a baby? A baby! A babe! Let’s get to work!

It’s completely absurd, but somehow Dinklage makes this character feel like the most reasonable person in the entire town.

Which brings me to what I actually found interesting about WICKER.

But recognizing the message doesn’t automatically make the movie brilliant, and I find the enormous critical enthusiasm a little baffling. WICKER has been receiving glowing reviews, with critics celebrating its originality, romance and social commentary. I’m not saying they’re wrong to enjoy it. I enjoyed parts of it myself. But I don’t see the masterpiece some people apparently see.

It’s silly. It’s benign. Occasionally it’s cute. Sometimes it’s genuinely funny, and the visual craftsmanship involved in bringing Skarsgård’s character to life is impressive. Colman is terrific, as usual, and the entire cast commits to this bizarre little universe without ever appearing embarrassed by it.

But a strange premise and a good cast don’t necessarily add up to a great movie.

What bothers me most is that WICKER seems much more interested in its romantic message than in the genuinely fascinating character standing just outside the romance. The basketmaker isn’t simply a convenient magical character who gets the story started. He’s responsible for nearly everything that happens, whether he intended it or not, and he’s the one who ultimately has to deal with the consequences.

When the film finally gets around to its big finale, it’s the basketmaker who makes it work. In fact, I would argue that WICKER is really his story. He’s the catalyst, the problem solver and, in his own peculiar way, the moral center of the whole thing.

And Peter Dinklage is delightful. Without him, I’m not sure I would have liked WICKER very much at all.

I can appreciate what directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson have created. The film has a distinct personality, a wonderfully odd setting and enough imagination to keep it interesting. I certainly can’t accuse it of being ordinary. But there’s a difference between enjoying a peculiar movie and believing it’s something extraordinary.

For me, WICKER is pretty good. Not terrible, not brilliant, just a strange and amusing little fairy tale that occasionally mistakes its own weirdness for profundity.

I started out feeling sorry for the fisherwoman. By the end, I felt sorry for the basket, and the only person I really wanted to spend more time with was the guy making them.