Hayley Ellis of Georgia has always liked wicker baskets — she thinks they’re cute and she enjoys collecting them. Until three months ago, that was pretty much all she had to say about the topic.
Then along came the trailer for the movie “Wicker,” a romantic drama about an old-timey village spinster (Olivia Colman) who commissions a basket weaver to make her a husband out of wicker. The resulting woven man (who takes the form of a strapping Alexander Skarsgard) turns out to have a kind spirit and exceptional talents in the bedroom. The trailer starts with a scene of Colman’s head thrown back in ecstasy alongside some very loud creaking noises.
This preview footage quickly lit up the internet, spawning countless jokes about people suddenly being sexually attracted to wicker, and Ellis realized she had a problem: Her TikTok username is wicker.basket.enthusiast. To clarify, she posted a video in front of her wicker collage wall, explaining that she liked the baskets long before the wicker hunk.
Her video, posted on TikTok in August, has more than 7 million views. Ellis thinks the whole thing is hilarious — though she was a little taken aback by the intense response.
“Now I feel, like, weirdly attached, and responsible for making wicker content,” Ellis told The Washington Post. She identifies strongly with one of the comments on her video that reads, “This is such a specific issue that we never could have foretold.”
This virality is the dream scenario for independent films like “Wicker,” which has its wide release this weekend. The raunchy trailer — which downplays the movie’s deeper themes about marriage and the patriarchy — is helping to convert word-of-mouth buzz into audiences going to the theaters. Last week, in limited release, the movie grossed a respectable $5.7 million at the box office.
Meanwhile, the memes about the film (known to some as “50 Shades of Hay”) are still going strong, to the delight of fans who egg each other on in feral comment sections with jokes about the sexual prowess of furniture; how hospitals are about to have an uptick in patients with splinter emergencies; and whether the movie will show all of the wicker anatomy.
Brands are now involved, with Ikea touting its rattan bench as “made from husband material,” and the Walmart TikTok account writing, “No wonder we’re sold out of wicker.” Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s preshow before the movie includes clips of stock photos of wicker items, set to sexy music.
“Our preshows generally try to get audiences in the mood for the feature they’re about to see. So we thought it’d be amusing to apply that approach very literally for ‘Wicker,’” said Ray Loyd, Alamo’s senior video producer.
“Wicker” directors-screenwriters Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson did not respond to the The Post’s request for an interview about the reaction. But the movie’s official TikTok and Instagram have joined in the discourse, commenting on memes and reposting the Regal Cinemas account that encourages viewers to “feel every creak in 4DX.” Colman and Skarsgard are good sports on the press tour, exemplified in one “Entertainment Tonight” segment where the interviewer tried to delicately inquire about full-frontal scenes.
“Are we talking about willies? Is that what you’re saying?” Academy Award winner Colman finally asked.
“That’s what I’m saying, but I wanted you to say it,” the reporter admitted.
“I thought it was quite beautiful. I was quite proud of it,” declared Skarsgard, who spent hours each day on set being fitted into his elaborate costume. “I thought they did a fantastic job. I approve.”
Fantasy a hit among women
Social media aside, what do wicker stores across America have to say about the phenomenon? Had they even heard of “Wicker”?
Of the dozen that I called, most had no clue what I was talking about. Two angrily hung up on me, which I probably deserved. One person started talking about the 1973 horror movie “The Wicker Man.” (Thanks for the nightmares.) I got a “yes” from Harrison Wenzel, whose family owns New Jersey’s Cape May Wicker. He told me that someone sent him the trailer a few months ago and his immediate reaction was along the lines of, “Oh God, what the hell?”
I also drove to Owings, Maryland, and visited Spice Islands Wicker, owned by Don Walker, who started the business in 1987. We discussed the history of wicker; its differences from rattan; and how the demand for wicker furniture rises and falls over time. He watched the trailer after I told him about the movie, and while he took issue with some of the logistics (“He’s not made of wicker, he’s got wicker skin”), he couldn’t really judge.
“I mean, I liked the way the wicker looked. That was cool,” Walker said. He added, “And since it’s a fantasy, you can have a little poetic license there.”
The fantasy aspect is a key reason the trailer took off. This summer, Shemaine Benson of Ashburn, Virginia, saw nearly 200,000 views on her TikTok post in which she pretended a wicker set of drawers was trying to seduce her. (She declined, pointing to her engagement ring.) She offered no context, but hundreds of comments poured in from those who had heard about the film. In an interview, Benson wondered if the popularity of BookTok, the reading community that is often drawn to romance, erotica and romantasy novels, added to the excitement.
“I think it just gave them more fuel to be like, ‘Oh, I’m looking forward to watching this movie,’” Benson said.
The film has already been a hit among groups of women. Sofia Delfino of Miami was delighted to find a cardboard cutout of the wicker man at the theater; she and her friends pulled it into a photo booth for a romantic photo shoot. Delfino recorded the moment and labeled the TikTok video “girlhood.” The “Wicker” account left a comment, along with a basket emoji: “The perfect bonding activity.”
Delfino’s theater was almost full, she said. “Everyone was having such a blast. It was a bunch of girls,” she told The Post. People are seeking community more than ever, she added, and the movie served as a break from the chaos of the world. “Just taking you away from all the craziness and providing you with that fun, careless energy that I feel like we all need a little bit more of, you know?”
‘An unconventional love story’
Los Angeles comedian Cat Sullivan, who had a great time recording a series where she pretended to be in a fraught relationship with her wicker hamper, has noticed that the movie genuinely hit a nerve among a vocal audience: women who are fed up with the dating world. (Sample TikTok comments: “You know the bar is in hell with these men when they got us thirsting over a wicker basket,” “And we’d rather date THIS than an actual man.”)
“I feel like dating culture is so hard, especially with online dating and everything, that I think a large reaction from the people in the comments was, you know, ‘It’s funny that this is our ideal relationship now,’” Sullivan said in an interview.
Now that “Wicker” is in theaters, many viewers are pleasantly surprised to discover that the film isn’t just a “horny basket movie.” Based on a short story fable by Ursula Wills, the script portrays the wicker man as a thoughtful and devoted husband, and the plot explores ultimately very human themes about married life, femininity, masculinity, and what it means to be truly loved.
Michayla George of Nashville is a Skarsgard fan, and she knew she would be seeing the movie as soon as she saw the preview where he was “dressed like a basket in a suit.” She was pleased that it wound up being more than a traditional romance, and that Colman’s character and her wicker husband developed a real connection.
“It’s refreshing to see an unconventional love story,” she said in an interview. “It was an opportunity to reflect on how you view yourself and being in a place to receive love from someone else.”
Cris Bartoletti, a film and TV content creator in Boston, was glad the screenwriters offered a broader societal critique, showcasing how the villagers — accustomed to marriages where wives are subservient — are scandalized not by the wicker, but a relationship where a man puts his wife’s needs first. While the attention-grabbing trailer lured people in, she told The Post, the filmmakers clearly anticipated that the audience would be receptive to the movie’s greater message.
“I think a lot of people were maybe surprised by the direction, but they were really, really happy with it,” Bartoletti said, adding, “I think that’s what we need — it’s a way to find more success for original movies and get people out to the theaters to see something they wouldn’t have otherwise seen.”
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