All of your questions about 'Wicker', the sexy basket man movie, answered

After years of handwringing over the state of the movie industry, 2026 has emerged like a beacon in the dark. People are actually buying out IMAX theatres to watch Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Tom Holland and Zendaya have managed to revive interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Even the rom-com, once considered a dying genre, is getting an unexpected refresh with the wacky and ever meme-able concept behind One Night Only. But in between all the blockbusters and epics, one of 2026’s most surprising cinematic offerings is Wicker.

Written and directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, Wicker follows a lonely fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) who pays a local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband. The resulting Frankenstein’s monster-esque creation (Alexander Skarsgård) becomes the talk of the town—and the object of envy for all the village women who once mocked our heroine.

The trailer offers a glimpse of what to expect from this bizarre fable. On more than one occasion, the fisherwoman and her wicker husband consummate their marriage. “I heard he’s strong as a tree and just as hard,” one of the villagers remarks. Too bad the fisherwoman’s marriage exists in a universe without Taylor Swift’s “Wood.”

While the premise leaves many questions unanswered, at least we know what we can expect from the cast’s press tour wardrobe. (May I suggest this basket tote bag from The Row? Or perhaps this raffia party dress from Aje?) In the meantime, we took great pains to answer every question you may have asked while watching the Wicker trailer.

Is he really a basket?

Yes. Really.

While we don’t yet know if the movie will explain the magical properties that gave sentient life to wooden fibres, the trailer hints at the basket maker’s mystical powers. “You’ve got some sort of scheme going on with the natural world, haven’t you?” the fisherwoman asks in the trailer’s closing scene. The basket maker responds simply: “Mother nature provides. I merely augment.”

Besides the fantastical element, we can also probably assume that wicker serves a real narrative function and isn’t simply a stand-in for double entendres about the hardness of wood. The film, at its core, is a folk tale about flouting societal conventions and breaking the expected moulds of relationships and marriage. There’s probably a reason the husband was woven of wicker by a basket maker and not, say, hammered of iron by a blacksmith.

So Pinocchio, but make it sexy?

Basically. If Geppetto can make a real boy out of wood, then why can’t Peter Dinklage?

How can she have sex with a man made of wicker without getting splinters?

If you can suspend your disbelief long enough to believe that Tyrion from Game of Thrones wove a living creature out of coarse natural fibres, then you can suspend it once again when it comes to their marital bed.

And besides, natural wicker softens when wet. The U.K Trailer even offers a glimpse of the wicker husband bathing in a river, in his bare…flesh? Fiber? The internet has been having fun zooming into that particular still.

Who came up with this story?

Wicker is based on a short story by Ursula Wills-Jones, a Bristol-based writer.

Wilson opened up about adapting the story during an interview with Deadline earlier this year. “It’s intrinsically a very visual premise,” the director and screenwriter said. “And it just felt like it would be an amazing translation to screen. So that was a huge draw. And sort of the challenge of, ‘What would a wicker man look like?’ It was really exciting to us.” 

Prior to the movie, the story was adapted into a Musical by Olivier Award–winning composer Darren Clark and writer Rhys Jennings.

Who else is in this movie?

Besides Colman, Skarsgård, and Dinklage, Wicker also stars Elizabeth Debicki (The Crown), Richard E. Grant (Doctor Who), Ella Bruccoleri (The Other Bennet Sister), Marli Siu (Our Ladies), Nabhaan Rizwan (Informer), and Ben Ashenden (Jurassic World Dominion).

Is the wicker husband CGI?

Amazingly, the film used minimal CGI, opting for practical effects and costumes instead.

Wicker enlisted the talents of art director and prosthetic makeup designer Joe Dunckley and makeup and hair designer Sarah Rubano from Wētā Workshop, a New Zealand-based company known for its special effects work on films like The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Dune, and more. (Tóth András Dániel and Attila Godena-Juhász also served as the costume designers for Wicker.)

That means Skarsgård actually wore a fully functional suit and prosthetics. According to The Express Tribune, his costume included a 3D-printed shell moulded to his body, with real wicker weaving applied to the outer layer. Digital effects were used in order to make the gaps in between the wicker appear hollow, like a real basket.

“Most male actors dream of playing Hamlet at some point in their career. I never did,” Skarsgård said in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. “My dream was always to have nipples made out of wicker. Thanks to our wonderful directors, Eleanor and Alex, and the brilliant artists at Wētā in New Zealand, my dream has finally come true.”

I’ve heard enough. When and where can I watch this magnificent movie?

Wicker will be released in select theatres on October 23, with a wider release slated for October 30. You can sign up to be notified when tickets go on sale. 

This article originally appeared in Harper's Bazaar US July-August 2026 print issue. 

Image credits: YouTube

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