Wicker (MA) – 106 minutes

Love is, indeed, a many splendoured thing in the fantasy comedic drama Wicker … as the lead character falls head over heels for a basket.

Well, not quite. It is actually a man constructed by the art of wicker, namely weaving thin pliable material, such as that which one uses to create a basket.

For all intents and purposes though, he looks like an intricate wooden tapestry.

Wicker, the movie, turns out to be a salutary lesson about envy.

The central focus is on a woman ridiculed by a small village.

There, townsfolks are referred to by the jobs they have.

So, she is known as Fisherwoman because she fishes and sells her “smelly” catch.

A spinster, played by Olivia Colman, she lives alone on the outskirts of town.

Other women look to marry, but not her.

In fact, it is the Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki) who pretty much rules the roost among the ladies in town.

That is until after an incident at the wedding of the Tailor’s Wife’s Sister (Marli Siu), a quaint variation of catching the bouquet (making you next in line to marry).

So it is that the Fisherwoman marches up to the home of the Basket Weaver (Peter Dinklage), the only one of the villagers who treats her well.

Her request to him is nothing if not outside the norm. She asks him to make her a husband.

He responds by requesting that she return in a month and, voilà, the handsome, strong, tall Wicker Husband (Alexander Skarsgård) emerges.

He is totally devoted to his wife. The pair is really good together and that includes having electrifying sex.

Their union becomes the talk of the village.

The other married women are envious of Wicker Husband’s chivalrous ways – a sharp contrast to the boorish behaviour of their husbands.

In short, they are hot for him.

Then, suspicion is planted into the Fisherwoman’s mind, and the plot takes off from there.

Saucy and salacious, Wicker is a bold, brash and creative undertaking, written and directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson.

It is based on the 2008 short story The Wicker Husband by Ursula Wills.

The longer the film went the more I was sold.

Unusual, to be sure, but I loved the well-drawn characters.

Olivia Colman is terrific as the gracious outcast, who drives the yarn.

Complete with terrific make up, costuming and production values, Alexander Skarsgård is humble as her dedicated husband.

Peter Dinklage is earnest, the moral arbiter, if you will, as the Basket Weaver.

I also appreciated the strength Elizabeth Debicki engendered into her role as the holier than though driver of the village women.

My mind wandered back to the impact Edward Scissorhands had on me when I saw that in 1990.

There is a lot to appreciate about Wicker and its representation of the salty relationships between men and women.

Rated MA, it scores an 8 out of 10.