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People move away from Fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) when she comes into town to sell her fish since she smells like the water, and she chuckles with delight when she accidentally receives an egg meant to foreshadow marriage at a town wedding. Mocked by the condescending Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki), Fisherwoman opts to commission an unusual work from the Basketmaker (Peter Dinklage): a husband. This new Wicker Husband (Alexander Skarsgård) expresses nothing but devotion for his bride, spending his days fixing things around her home and nights giving her the kind of sexual fulfillment that, as becomes clear quite quickly, isn’t something that any of the human husbands in town are ever really able to do for their wives.

Based on a short story by Ursula Wills, this enchanting fable brings married filmmakers Wilson and Fischer back to Sundance after their previous film Save Yourselves! This is a more dramatic pivot, still laced with comedy and oddities but evocative of something much darker. Creating the Wicker Husband doesn’t require any explanation other than that, in this film’s world, it’s possible simply because someone thought to ask for it. Initially decried as a crime against nature, the townspeople soon come to see his blind and unwavering devotion to his wife as something not just strange but potentially quite desirable. Because a story like this must have a villain, the Tailor’s Wife is the one who takes it upon herself to ensure that this brewing unease boils over into something with the potential to devastate the Fisherwoman and punish her for trying to make her own rules.

The look of the Wicker Husband, who immediately goes to the Tailor to borrow a suit to wear for his wedding, evokes the latter character in Beauty and the Beast, which itself adds layers given that those roles are reversed here. Prosthetic designer Joe Dunckley from Wētā Workshop deserves enormous credit, embellishing the character with magnificent detail that makes him look and feel just as real as any of the actors merely adorned with makeup and costumes. There’s not all that much time spent on dissecting every bit of his body, but what is seen is emphatic and extremely descriptive, keeping this fantastical element as something that can be thought-provoking as a plot device because something so unnatural looks and feels so natural.

This core cast of Emmy winners delivers reliably, with Colman well-experienced with this kind of part thanks to past roles in Wicked Little Letters and Wonka, among others. Skarsgård is much more measured and slightly robotic – in the best way – than his turn in another Sundance film this year, The Moment. Dinklage dutifully performs his critical but otherwise relatively small role, while Debicki digs furthest into her character, navigating a yearning for purpose that transforms into dampening the happiness of those she feels have been able to find theirs. The surrounding universe of this film is filled with entertaining particularities, like the use of a collar during wedding ceremonies to indicate the fidelity to their husbands these new wives will now be expected to fulfill. It’s positively reminiscent in tone of a 2019 Sundance entry, Judy & Punch, using a period setting and fantasy enhancement to unearth timeless truths about the human condition.

Movie Rating: 8/10