‘Wicker’ review: Olivia Colman’s weird wooden romcom is 2026’s most bizarre film

The trick neatly pulled off by Wicker is that it feels – in tone, texture, speech and rhythms – similar to a Grimms’ fairy tale or something else from centuries past. In fact, the source is Ursula Wills-Jones’ 2008 short story The Wicker Husband – and no, it has nothing to do with classic folk-horror The Wicker Man. Here, there are no sacrifices or missing girls on a remote Scottish island. Rather, we’re in a (possibly) medieval village in England, although the time and place are distinctly fudged by directors Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston. READ MORE: The best films of 2026… so far! It’s an environment expertly realised by the film’s costume and make-up teams as well as production designer Renátó Cseh, who previously did that other quirky period fable Poor Things. You can practically smell the stench of this pre-industralised world through the screen. Everyone in Wicker is known by their lot in life and at the centre of this film is Olivia Colman’s Fisherwoman. She’s quite happy as a singleton though has to live out in the forest because of the rather pungent, fishy aroma that clings to her. The other women in the village increasingly tease her about her bachelorette status until ...