Directed and written by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer; starring Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgard, Peter Dinklage, and Elizabeth Debecki
Plot Summary
A fisherwoman asks the local basketmaker to make her a husband. He does, they have wicker sex, and everybody is mad about it, especially the tailor's wife.
Characters
Fisherwoman (Colman) - a woman living on the fringe of a village, looking in while everyone lives their lives in unfulfilled companionship, who finds love with a wicker husband
Wicker Husband (Skarsgard) - a pure soul who is helpful and kind which means he's outside of society as well
Basket Weaver (Dinklage) - a man living on the outside of society creating oddities by weaving various materials and giving them life through a secret process
Tailor's Wife (Debecki) - a woman seemingly who has it all, a successful husband and children in a small village, giving her a position that puts her at odds with those on the fringe who wish to live differently than the life she has found herself trapped within.
Setting
English times with carts and dirt and no first names
Thoughts
Narrator and crazy hermit = life goals - There's something about living in the middle of the woods doing magical shit with wicker that speaks to me. Not in any way that would make me give up wifi and burritos, but it's a damn good way to live your life if you feel somewhat easy about how your life has turned out.
Bullying and wanting more when you can't be a tailor - Pretty early on you see that Tailor's Wife is a pretty miserable person despite her station as the town's lead person who has things. People look up to her. Her father is a doctor. She and her husband have it "all together," whatever that means from the outside. Perception and all that, when she wants more but her husband gently rebuffs her ideas about expanding their business and her station in their lives.
Evil Dead cam, shaky - Pretty cool visual that gives a menace and a haunting air to the "woman who fucks a wicker dude" movie.
Facial wound - Tailor's Wife early on gets a wound on her face that sticks around long after it should have healed, especially considering her father was/is the local doctor.
Baker's kinda freaky - Best running gag throughout is the sex life of the Baker family.
Best Scene: foot doctor - When the doctor shows up, it's a wacky scene trying to save a person's life and my god, it's gory and silly and funny. Set to propel the action forward with a shocking death, it also shows how incompetent the smart people are who control the town.
Wicker baby leads to damage - Not the freakiest baby in cinema.
Blackthorn woman very Twain/Faulkner - The end gives a very moral outrage kinda story. Give the good people who judge the wicked from the wicker a prize that they compete for, in this case a Wicker Woman, and they will eat each other. And they do and it ends just as dark for the wicked.
Discussion Questions
The movie is set before cellphones. What would be different if there was a wicker cell phone?
Everyone in the movie is known by their profession. Would society be better if this was still in practice? Would it make it easier to hate people than it already is?
If you could fuck something made of wicker, would you? Never have I ever rules apply.
Say your only contact with medicine was a drunk with a needle. Would you?
What's one thing that if you and your friends had to compete for would tear you each apart, casting your friendship aside like coffee grounds out a Starbucks backdoor? Would it appeal to sex, money, or power?
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