Review: In the funny and sexy 'Wicker,' the perfect man is society's worst nightmare

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Set us as preferred Reason No.1 to watch “Wicker” is the natural intrigue of seeing Alexander Skarsgård molded out of twigs: face, arms, pecs and abs — and yes, there’s also a shot of that.Reason No.

2 is that the married filmmaking team of Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson have made a mischievous, crowd-pleasing folktale with several sweet beats of romance.Their wicker man isn’t an object of punishment, like the one that made Nicolas Cage flail around screaming about bees.

His creator, an unnamed basket-weaver (Peter Dinklage), braided him as a mate for a lonely virgin, a fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) who stomps around her rustic village smelling like sushi and tossing her head back in an Eliza Doolittle guffaw.In public, the fisherwoman acts tough.But alone in her candlelit cottage, she’s visibly weary of her joyless routine.

The liveliest noise in her spinster hovel is the sound she makes using the chamber pot.Once married, however, she wakes up the whole town screaming with delight; her wicker spouse is the handy type who breaks the bed at night and fixes it in the morning.

His competence is a major turn-on.Fischer and Wilson’s bawdy fable is predominately about how this flammable hunk makes the rest of the villagers burn up with jealousy.He’s not like the other men — he’s better.

The time period is vaguely medieval and the accents British, save for Skarsgård, who speaks in a flat, neutral exhale, the sound of breeze riffling through straw.Meanwhile, Dinklage’s pizzicato mutterings always sound like he’s about to burst into song.

Entertainment & Arts Based on “The Wicker Husband,” a 10-page short story by Ursula Wills-Jones, “Wicker” is pitching itself as kooky smut, which it is, for about 15 worthwhile minutes.Romantasy is a hot-selling genre.

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