T he trick neatly pulled off by Wicker is that it feels – in tone, texture, speech and rhythms – similar to a Grimms’ fairy tale or something else from centuries past. In fact, the source is Ursula Wills-Jones’ 2008 short story The Wicker Husband – and no, it has nothing to do with classic folk-horror The Wicker Man . Here, there are no sacrifices or missing girls on a remote Scottish island. Rather, we’re in a (possibly) medieval village in England, although the time and place are distinctly fudged by directors Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston.

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It’s an environment expertly realised by the film’s costume and make-up teams as well as production designer Renátó Cseh, who previously did that other quirky period fable Poor Things . You can practically smell the stench of this pre-industralised world through the screen. Everyone in Wicker is known by their lot in life and at the centre of this film is Olivia Colman ’s Fisherwoman.…