There have been plenty of movies I’ve seen in recent memory that have catered or mostly catered to a female audience. I’m not just talking about movies like Barbie. It Ends with Us was like that. So was The Housemaid, though the latter did have some testosterone in the room. Doubtless The Devil Wears Prada would have been similar had I managed to catch it in theaters. The experience of seeing a movie in a roomful of women isn’t that weird these days, but I can 100% say seeing Wicker in a packed theater of women was a wild experience. I can’t recommend it enough.
Listen, I’ve been in some invested audiences before. I bawled my eyes out in The Fault in our Stars. I was in a giant theater opening night and the whole crowd burst into applause several times when Godzilla opened in 2014. I saw Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 in an early screening before the fanbase knew what was coming and people in the theater were freaking out. Some fans literally stood up several times in my Avengers: Endgame showing. None of this prepared me for the crowd I’d sit with during my viewing of Wicker this weekend.
I can’t remember the last time I sat with such a rowdy crowd. Actually, that’s not true. I can. It was Magic Mike.
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Let me set the stage really quickly. Wicker is in wide release right now, but with You Can See Everything, Clayface and more in theaters, it’s not exactly occupying prime real estate. At my local theater, we were in the last theater in a row of theaters, and there were maybe 40 seats in total. (I just checked; it’s 44.) Despite these uphill battles, outside of a few first row strays, my entire theater was full, and entirely full of women. It was the perfect crowd.
If you’ve seen Wicker, it manages an oddball tone that’s both sincere and extremely funny, and on top of this just the general idea of Alexander Skarsgard being recreated in wicker lends even more absurdity to any viewing of the movie. Critics have loved Wicker, but also It’s no wonder the sex scenes were so difficult to pull off.
The audience was primed for this. As characters died and Wicker babies were born (created?), everyone in the room was vocal. The laughter was palpable. Many times people hooted and hollered at the screen. Everyone was very invested in Mr. Wicker, the undeniably awesome character played by Alexander Skarsgard, a creature who upended the village just by figuring out how how to communicate with the woman he loved.
It’s subversive, sex positive, and hilarious, and I feel completely justified in saying I think it has to be better in exactly the context I watched it in: A packed theater chock full of women.
I haven’t seen Wicker from the comfort of my own couch yet, for obvious reasons. Doubtless it will still have a wicked script and will still be received positively by audiences, but this is one rare indie movie that absolutely translates to the movie theater and deserves a solid box office run; I feel confident it will NOT be better from the comfort of your own home. I feel so grateful a bunch of ladies threw on their sweatshirts and brought in their theater blankets on a Sunday evening to experience Wicker with me.
I’m as enamored with you all as I was with Mr. Skarsgård and the sacrifices he made to turn his body into wood on the big screen.