It’s too bad the title “The Wicker Man” was already taken, as that’s literally what star Alexander Skarsgård is playing in “Wicker,” a randy little ditty of a film from married co-writers and co-directors Alex Houston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, who adapt the story “The Wicker Husband,” by Ursula Wills for the screen. Skarsgård, always up for any kind of particularly sexy challenge, plays the titular husband here, woven by a skilled Basket Maker (Peter Dinklage), at the behest of a lonely Fisherwoman (Olivia Colman), who lives in a terribly strange little village in a sort of vaguely medieval era.

“Mother Nature provides,” says the Basket Maker, “I merely augment.” That’s one way to put it, as he delivers a 6-foot-plus sex machine made of wicker to the Fisherwoman. The perfect man doesn’t exist? The Fisherwoman finds her new beau breaking the bed frame nightly — and he’s handy around the house in many other ways too. The only drawback? If he gets damp, he molds; he’s a 10, but he’s highly flammable.

This is the second feature from filmmaking duo Fischer and Wilson. Their charming 2020 apocalyptic comedy “Save Yourselves!” focused on millennial relationship ennui, and while “Wicker” takes place in the distant past, matters of the heart remain the same across eons. Lovers and friends still experience biting jealousy, rejection as self-protection, fantasizing, scheming and making amends after behaving badly. Millennials and medieval villagers? We’re not so different after all.

“Wicker” is not so different from “The Wicker Man” either, introducing the audience to a cloistered community where the customs might be quirky but the underlying values are the same. There’s a high value placed on marriage, and young women find themselves wedded to much older men, literally collared during the ceremony, a premium placed on reproduction. No wonder the village finds themselves scandalized (and maybe even radicalized) at an older woman experiencing sexual pleasure, at all, and for just that reason — not even conception.

This patriarchal social order is enforced by a diabolical blond woman, as they usually are. The Doctor’s Daughter is now the Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki), and her desire for more than this provincial village manifests in her attempting to control every coupling. The Wicker Husband proves out of her reach, however, and so she wreaks her emotional havoc through her childhood foe, the Fisherwoman, who has finally found happiness.

Colman and Skarsgård make for an oddly perfect twosome: her Fisherwoman is irreverent and unserious, his Husband is staid and stiff (in more ways than one), but both actors have a mischievous streak that makes their chemistry sizzle. He plays everything straight, she never does, and it’s that contrast that makes them work, especially when the Fisherwoman drops her defensive banter and Colman lets her sincerity shine through.

But this entire world is laced with humor and mischief, from Fischer and Wilson’s cheeky dialogue — which is often both rude and rhyming — to the performances from Richard E. Grant as the Doctor, Dinklage’s Basket Maker wielding his newfound power, and a devilish Debicki having a ball. The rest of the supporting cast are all terrific in this tale of a sexually confused town that needs a little deviance in order to loosen the social bonds that are holding it back.

Woven and crafted with as much care as the wicker creations the Basket Maker animates, Fischer and Wilson deliver a feisty feminist fable that thrums and sings to the beat of its own drum, rhythmic and playful. Anna Meredith’s unique score of woodwinds and strings is curious and beautifully whimsical; Lol Crawley’s sunlit and fireside cinematography transports us to this “quaint little cesspit,” where the natural world is interwoven with the bizarre rituals dreamed up by humans to create order.

In its language and structure, the screenplay remains wedded to its literary roots and darkly fantastical tone, a cautionary fairy tale about the perils of wishing for something, and not being ready for what you receive. In a way, it’s the perfect companion to “Obsession,” where a lonely heart wishes for a lover, and can’t handle what that means in reality. But in “Obsession,” it’s a real person who’s manipulated. At least we’re working with wicker here — though the Husband is far more sensitive and emotionally intelligent than the flesh-and-blood men in the village. But the doubts and insecurities on the wisher’s behalf are still the same, as are the bloody consequences for underestimating female wrath.

Unlike “Obsession,” “Wicker” dares to imagine a contented ending for our heroine, because fairy tales — even, or especially, strange, horny, funny curios like this — should always have a happy ending.

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'WICKER'

3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for sexual content, language and brief full nudity)

Running time: 1:45

How to watch: In theaters Oct. 23

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