In the film, Colman plays “the Fisherwoman”, a lonely misfit living outside of a nearby village who is soon chosen to marry in a local ritual that displeases her hostile neighbors. In search of a real husband, the fisherwoman soon commissions a local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to create a mate who, as viewers discover, is woven into the chiseled face of Alexander Skarsgård. Once the Fisherwoman brings her new companion home, things go well. Wicker become frisky. “I find the sex scenes very embarrassing, and I didn’t do it,” Colman said. THIS. “Because we got along really well and because there was humor in the sex scenes as well, which made it less awkward. And (Fischer and Wilson) are married and they would protest. So it was like, okay, we’re all in this together.” (As for what his co-directors demonstrated on the film’s closed set, Colman doesn’t say: even if an intimacy coordinator was involved at every step of the delicate process.)
Yes, despite the difficulties of moving around in a wicker man suit during scenes that require a certain level of vulnerability, Skarsgård agreed that filming the bed business for Wicker it went well. “(The) sex was great,” Skarsgård deadpanned. “The restriction of the costume would influence the sex scenes a little bit because (we) shot those scenes very early. It was the early days. So I was still figuring out the physicality and limitations of wearing the costume. There were certain things, like in bed you’re not very agile, so it’s like, okay, maybe that didn’t really work. Let’s do it this way instead, and then you’ll find a way to make it work.” Indeed, one can appreciate the challenge of squirming in bed with a colleague on a professional set while wearing a wicker suit if we imagine the experience to be similar to, say, swapping head and feet in a zipped sleeping bag, or trying to descend a steep slope while rolling in a giant tractor tire – but we can only speculate.
However Colman and Skarsgård managed to create this intimate harmony on set, their efforts were clearly worth it. The AV ClubMonica Castillo wrote that Wicker is “darkly funny and surprisingly moving (and not just about the bedframe)”, praising the film’s central love story, which “unearths deeper feelings around belonging, safety and fun”. Wicker is in theaters now.
