Black BearIt’s really, really cool to be a horndog right now. Women and their implicit desires have informed culture for decades, but the powers that be have only just woken up to the fact that catering to those desires can inspire lucrative results. Racy fan fiction is getting reworked into original romance; more are adapted into major motion pictures by the day. Thirsty video edits, modeled off K-pop fancams, have become a pillar of HBO’s new marketing scheme. Bridgerton and BookTok have made parallels to harlequin novels all the rage. It’s a validating trend for those nourished by the female gaze. It’s also, mostly, a marketing ploy. And it’s been a blessing and blindspot for something like Wicker.The film, based on a short story by Ursula Wills-Jones, was born for the post-modern romantasy boom. Olivia Colman stars as a lonely fisherwoman who, after enduring endless ridicule about her stench and spinsterhood, asks her town’s basketweaver (Peter Dinklage) to fashion her a husband. As said husband is portrayed with a tender, quiet stoicism by Alexander Skarsgård — whose status as a Freaky Little Dude has been well established — Wicker very quickly found a niche as the year’s strangest, horniest movie, riding the wave that Frankenstein and Nosferatu kicked up in 2025. Its first trailer led with all the lovemaking our Fisherwoman and her Wicker Husband got up to; 4DX screenings promised a more-or-less immersive experience with a smirk and a wink. There’s a new poster inspired by classic romance novels. A particularly withering review called Wicker “the Kama Sutra with a sentient basket” — a statement that was probably designed to wound, but ultimately rang out as a glowing endorsement. (At least, for those on the right wavelength.)What’s shocking about Wicker is how wrong that assessment really is. Yes, it’s horny: unabashedly, hilariously so. But it’s far less concerned with the getting-it-on as it is with the wrecking ball of sexual frustration it unleashes on one village — and it’s a much smarter, richer film because of it.Wicker doesn’t concern itself with the logistics of the Basketweaver’s talent. One moment, Colman’s Fisherwoman (no one has names, BTW, just job titles) is handing him a sack of coins with which to commission a soulmate; one montage later, his creation is stomping into town like Frankenstein’s monster, asking to borrow a suit from the Tailor (Nabhaan Rizwan) for his nuptials. To call this village closed-minded would be an understatement. In this vaguely medieval setting, marriages are sealed by a metal collar snapped over a bride’s neck, and wedded bliss has no regard for female pleasure. None but the Fisherwoman have any real autonomy — the women’s titles are attached to their husbands, from the Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki), to her naive sister, the Bottle Washer’s Wife (Marli Siu), and their outspoken friend, the Baker’s Wife (Ella Bruccoleri) — or very happy relationships.The Wicker Man is the walking, talking, toe-curling wake-up call no one is ready for. Sure, the whole town is weirded out by the fact that he’s made of wicker. (Skarsgård’s basket-skin suit, designed by WĒTA Workshop, is a feat of technical wonder). But weirder still is his immediate devotion to the Fisherwoman — and his ability to deliver pleasure so absolute that some in the village initially think our heroine is being murdered.Dinklage plays God in delightfully Shakespearean fashion. | Black BearMonster-lovers will find a whole lot to like in Wicker: short of Pillion, Skarsgård has never been sexier. But directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson are careful not to lean into it. Aside from a wedding-night nod to the Wicker Man’s, er… wood — which, surprisingly, the duo play for laughs — Wicker is far more focused on the emotions their hero stirs up. Every word out of his mouth is one of dutiful affirmation. He performs acts of service without being asked and demonstrates a healthy curiosity in the Fisherwoman’s inner life. In short: he puts the other husbands to shame and shows their wives what they’ve been missing. Chaos undoubtedly ensues, but it’s a slow knife that upends the status quo and steers Wicker in shockingly deep directions.As the village wives begin to realize that the grass may be greener on the Fisherwoman’s side of town, Wicker examines a far more crucial aspect to any healthy relationship: trust. Whether our unorthodox couple can weather the storm of rumors, jealousy, and suspicion swelling amongst the townsfolk becomes a far more important question in the film’s sobering back half, as Fischer and Wilson embrace the murkier moral corners of their frisky fable. Yes, pleasure is one principle at play — but Wicker well and truly sings when it turns its gaze on those who’ve been deprived of it... and what they’ll do to get it.Wicker opens in theaters on October 23.