Olivia Colman & Alexander Skarsgård Bring 'Wicker' to Zurich

Few film festivals carry the quiet prestige of Zurich, a gathering that has long favored ambitious, idiosyncratic cinema over the blockbuster spectacle of Cannes or Venice. It was a fitting stage, then, for Wicker — a film that, by all accounts, resists easy categorization — when Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård walked the green carpet together on the evening of September 28 to introduce their new collaboration to the world.

A Fable Unlike Anything on the Fall Slate

Directed by the duo of Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, Wicker is described in its official synopsis as an audacious comedic fable about sex, marriage, and the absurdities of social convention. The premise is as singular as they come: a fisherwoman, shunned by her community, commissions the local basketmaker — played by Peter Dinklage — to construct her a husband from wicker. When that wicker husband, brought to life by Skarsgård, turns out to be far more remarkable than she anticipated, the ripples of jealousy and fascination he stirs threaten to upend the entire village. It is the kind of wholly original, fable-driven storytelling that recalls the surrealist comedies of Jacques Tati or the darker fairy-tale register of early Michel Gondry — a willingness to operate on the level of myth while remaining grounded in very human longing.

For audiences drawn to the kind of bold, unconventional fantasy filmmaking that has been making waves lately — Sandra Bullock's return in the first Practical Magic 2 trailer comes to mind — Wicker looks set to occupy its own distinct creative territory.

What the Stars Are Saying

According to Just Jared, Skarsgård addressed the more unusual demands of the role with characteristic dry wit when speaking to Entertainment Weekly. Reflecting on the prosthetic wicker costume crafted by the effects artists at Weta in New Zealand, he quipped that while most male actors harbor ambitions of playing Hamlet, his personal dream had always been to possess nipples made of wicker — a goal he confirmed has now been gloriously achieved. It is a self-aware joke that also speaks to the film's tone: Wicker is clearly not interested in taking itself too seriously, even as it grapples with weightier themes of desire and social belonging.

Colman, for her part, offered a more earnest assessment. She described the screenplay as one of the most original and accomplished scripts she had encountered in years, and spoke warmly about her co-star's performance, noting that in the wicker costume Skarsgård becomes something closer to a work of art — exaggerated, breathtaking, and, crucially, inhabited by a genuine soulfulness. That interplay between the absurd and the emotionally real is precisely where the best fantasy comedies find their power.

Two Awards Veterans, One Wildly Original Project

The pairing of Colman, 52, and Skarsgård, 50, represents a meeting of two performers with formidable track records in prestige drama — her Academy Award for The Favourite, his Emmy for Big Little Lies — who have both demonstrated a willingness to take creative risks that many of their peers would sidestep. Colman's ability to inhabit both profound grief and sharp, physical comedy within the same performance is almost unparalleled in contemporary cinema, which makes her casting as an ostracized fisherwoman who falls for a man made of basketwork feel less eccentric than it might with almost any other actress. It is the kind of career choice that, alongside bold moves being made across the industry — Gal Gadot landing on Netflix with In the Hand of Dante among them — signals a broader appetite among established stars for genuinely unconventional material.

Release Details

For those planning ahead, Wicker arrives in select theaters on October 23, expanding to a wider release on October 30. A first trailer is already available for the curious. At the Zurich premiere itself, Colman appeared in a striking white ensemble, her hair noticeably longer than in recent public appearances, while Skarsgård kept things understated in a black suit worn over a white T-shirt — a quietly apt contrast for two performers whose on-screen dynamic, if the synopsis is any guide, is built on exactly that kind of push and pull.

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