Nine Philosophical and Logistical Questions Raised by the ‘Wicker’ Trailer, Answered

Cinema-wise, this was supposed to be the summer of Matt Damon fighting sea monsters and Tom Holland spinning webs. And it has been—until the trailer for a film about a magic wooden sex god dropped. Wicker, as the magic-wooden-sex-god film is called, comes out this October, and is set in a village in what seems like medieval times. The local fisherwoman, played by Olivia Colman, is taunted for not having a husband (and for being smelly, though that seems an inevitable part of being a medieval fisherwoman).So she commissions the local basket-maker to make her a husband. Out of wicker. Wicker husband is buff, obedient and pleasures the fisherwoman from head to toe; much sexual jealousy in the village ensues. He is played by Alexander Skarsgård with a bunch of facial and body prosthetics (imagine an Ent from Lord of the Rings, but looksmaxxed). Everyone is going insane about this, naturally; the phrase “wicker peen” has entered the collective consciousness. “WOOD PECKER: Olivia Colman writhes around in bed for steamy sex scenes with a BASKET man in ‘horny’ new film,” screamed one British tabloid. The trailer raises many questions—some simply logistical, and others going to the heart of what it is to be human and to love (really!). I have bravely attempted to answer some of those questions for you.So this is… a romantic comedy?The concept of a man made of wicker may well remind you of a little film called The Wicker Man, a 1973 British horror classic in which a man-shaped wicker construction plays an important role. But the vibe here is less “dark pagan shenanigans” and more “sprightly sex comedy”, helpfully telegraphed by the upbeat score and the presence of Richard E. Grant in a supporting role.Is Alexander Skarsgård playing a sex freak again?Yes. The BDSM rom-com Pillion has clearly ignited something in him, and the only way to surpass human-on-human kink is human-on-anthropomorphic-handicraft kink. “Most male actors dream of playing Hamlet at some point in their career. I never did,” Skarsgård told Entertainment Weekly. “My dream was always to have nipples made out of wicker.” And what lovely nipples they are.Sort of? The wicker man is made by a basket-maker played by Peter Dinklage; at one point in the trailer Colman asks if he has “some sort of scheme going with the natural world,” and he replies that “Mother Nature provides.” When she asks him to make her a husband, he tells her to turn up at the village chapel in a month. Cue a montage of him weaving his willow (not a euphemism) and even oiling it in a markedly sultry way. Like Gandalf if he was big on sex positivity.Is this going to be a contender for a Best Sound Oscar?It should be. Mr Wicker, who we first see in a suit for his matrimonials, makes a woody stretching sound whenever he moves whatever his equivalent to muscles are. This is taken to the max for all the shagging. Whoever the foley artist was on this, hopefully they got a fat check.What about…the chafing? The splinters?This goes notably unaddressed in the trailer. Sure, the basket weaver oiled the wood very well (definitely a euphemism), but it’s still not a material suited to intimate bodily contact. Although if this non-specific medieval era includes a magic wooden sex god, maybe there’s some lube knocking around as well.When did I last see a film about a sexy non-human boyfriend?In 2017 for The Shape of Water, in which a mute custodian at a top-secret government lab falls in love with the buff humanoid amphibian being held captive there. But at least that involves two actual animals. Guillermo del Toro, you’ve been blown out of the water here.How does the wicker man feel about wooden furniture?I wonder. I really do wonder. We’re in a village where everything is made out of wood and plant material, more or less, and at one point he’s on a ladder inspecting the fisherwoman’s thatched roof (not a euphemism, at least in this instance). For him, this is a world made of his own flesh. How does he hold it together? Well, he is constructed out of intricate latticework, so I guess everything is held together pretty tightly.Has Wicker further diminished my chances of finding romantic fulfilment?This film does not look like it will do much to help our current era of heteropessimism. The wicker man and the fisherwoman go at it so hard they break the bed—then he says he’ll fix it for her. In the words of one male villager, the women “are all aflutter” about his sexual and DIY prowess. “I heard that he’s strong as a tree and just as hard,” says one. “I don’t blame her, I’d climb that,” says another. This is all placing extremely unrealistic expectations on men made out of wobbly flesh and blood.Is this the most topical film of the year?It might be. Increasing numbers of people are adopting artificial, servile lovers in the form of AI chatbots, and Mr Wicker is much the same in vibe. He even has a chatbot-style clumsiness to his speech. When the couple are whispering sweet nothings to each other, the fisherwoman calls him “my timber knight, my withy ox.” He replies with “my soft-bodied female… animal.” There’s a metaphor in here somewhere, if we can all get our minds out of the gutter long enough to ponder it.