Wicker

Perhaps because of her rather smelly occupation or perhaps because of her finely honed personal defence mechanisms, but the fisher woman (Olivia Colman) remains steadfastly unattached. Occasionally that earns her the derision of her fellow villagers, and after one wedding ceremony sees her chosen by the eggie equivalent of a ouija board to be the next bride, she decides it's time to resort to desperate measures. She heads into the woods and asks the local basket maker (Peter Dinklage) to "make" her an husband. One month later and this strapping and kindly soul (Alexander Skarsgård) emerges into her life. Suffice to say it's not just her roof that gets a good fixing, but before long his generous and friendly approach is causing ructions in a village where the men are soon resentful of their wives interest in their new hunky resident, and where the wives are all soon infatuated by him and his prowess. Fuelled by some mischief from the duplicitous tailor's wife (Elizabeth Debicki) and a really clever plot twist towards the end, this is really quite good fun. Colman is a natural, there's bundles of chemistry between her and her newfound beau who manages to imbue his wooden character with quite a degree of humanity and personality, and though quite sparingly used, Dinklage has a glint in his eye throughout as he seems to present the film with it's mischievously moral rudder. There's a lot of effort gone into the look of this, sure, but it's really the pithy writing that tees up the a story that addresses serious issues of loneliness, envy and trust and wraps them in an amiable icing sugar.