A husband made from a basket? Why women are going wild for freaky film romance Wicker

The trailer for this romantic fantasy created an online frenzy thanks to its bizarre premise, about a woman who commissions a basketmaker to weave her the perfect husband. Here's why it has really struck such a chord.

Forget about Prince Charming or the rebellious bad boy – there's a new romantic lead women are going wild for, and he is made out of wicker.

Back in August, the internet came alive with Gifs, memes and reels reacting to the first trailer of Wicker – a period romantic fantasy with perhaps the year's most bizarre premise. Based on the short story The Wicker Husband by Ursula Wills-Jones, it stars Olivia Colman as an ostracised fisherwoman – known only as the Fisherwoman – who commissions Peter Dinklage's basketmaker to weave her the perfect husband. He arrives in the muscular woven form of Alexander Skarsgård, who caters to his new wife's every domestic need and sexual desire, as the village folk watch on with envy.

Suddenly, female and gay thirst for Skarsgård's Wicker hunk exploded online. Typical comments on the platform Threads included "Making my husband put a basket on his head to spice things up a bit" and "Insecure men thinking women only want muscles, meanwhile my entire feed is feral for a guy made out of a basket". 

Then there's been the enthusiastic online reaction to a Wicker promotional popcorn bucket created by Regal Cinemas and suggestively designed from a scan of Alexander Skarsgård's torso, which audiences can print out using a 3D printer at home.

What Wicker is actually about

The husband-and-wife film-making team behind Wicker, Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, tell the BBC they have been tickled by the responses and understand exactly why so many have fallen in lust with this magical pairing. "They're having sex, the roof is leaking, and he just says, 'I'm going to fix the roof' – then she has a screaming orgasm," Huston Fischer chuckles. "We made him very beautiful," adds Wilson, "but people are noticing that the best thing about the Wicker Husband is that he did something without being asked, and he doesn't require a pat on the back for it." 

Despite being set in a quasi-medieval fairytale village, the film is tapping into a very current conversation about the imbalance in heterosexual relationships, where women still shoulder much of the household and child-rearing burden. "At the time when we wrote it five years ago, I don't think domestic labour and its mental load was as much in the cultural conversation," says Wilson. She adds that she and Huston Fischer "have a child now so these domestic things you do end up having to negotiate, and now everyone has a lot more language for it",

In writing the script, she also wanted to address the "confronting" experiences of women who might be wary of dating and romance. "Entering into the dating pool can invite love into your life, but all of a sudden you're much more examined than you were before," says Wilson. "The Fisherwoman's journey is about what it is to be a woman in this world, struggling with your feelings about yourself and everybody........

© BBC