Olivia Colman’s Unretouched Face Transforms How Hollywood Shows Older Women

In a Hollywood landscape where female actors over 50 face relentless pressure to present ageless, surgically perfected versions of themselves, Olivia Colman’s appearance in the new film “Wicker” makes a quietly radical statement. She plays the Fisherwoman with her actual 52-year-old face unretouched—lined, textured, authentically aged—and she is undeniably, radiantly beautiful. This choice challenges an industry trained to believe that visible aging on women translates to invisibility.

The Premise and Plot of ‘Wicker’

The film is set in a medieval village where the Fisherwoman has endured years of ostracism and ridicule from her community. Exhausted by their condescension and their judgment of her unkempt appearance, she seeks out the village Basketmaker—played by Peter Dinklage—with an unusual commission: create her a husband. Using skills that extend far beyond furniture crafting, the Basketmaker weaves her a partner from wicker materials.

What unfolds after the awkward wedding ceremony is a sexual relationship so vigorous that it startles the town’s residents awake at night. They begin to suspect a murder is occurring near the newlyweds’ cottage, unaware that the sounds are those of enthusiastic intimacy between a middle-aged woman and her wicker mate. The situation presents a premise that would be darkly comedic if it weren’t also genuinely significant: a woman who looks like an actual woman in her fifties is shown as sexual, desirable, and worthy of passion.

Colman’s Face and What It Represents

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The power of authenticity

According to Allure’s review of the film, Colman’s face grows luminous as her relationship deepens. She becomes incandescent—not through makeup application or skincare protocols, but through the narrative’s portrayal of joy, love, and sexual fulfillment. Her beauty radiates from within the story itself. The distinction matters. Her glow isn’t the result of anti-aging serums, laser treatments, or digital retouching. It’s the result of a woman’s contentment, and that contentment reads on her authentic, aging face.

Why this visibility is rare

Most Hollywood films featuring actresses over 50 rely on cosmetic procedures, strategic lighting, heavy makeup, digital smoothing, or combinations of all four. The beauty industry has built an empire on the premise that aging is a problem requiring a solution, particularly for women. To see Colman’s unaltered face—with its lines, its texture, its markers of time—accepted as beautiful, even radiant, represents a departure from industry standard.

The character’s transformation

Within the film, the Fisherwoman’s change isn’t about her appearance altering; it’s about her being perceived. She was dismissed before because she was seen as unrefined and indifferent to the town’s standards. Once she has a partner who finds her worthy and desirable, she glows. The internal shift—being loved and desired—becomes visible on her face, no cosmetic intervention required.

Contrasting Beauty Messages: ‘Wicker’ and ‘Babygirl’

Nicole Kidman’s approach in ‘Babygirl’

Two years before “Wicker,” Allure praised the film “Babygirl,” which features Nicole Kidman as a powerful 50-something CEO pursuing sadomasochistic fantasies with a younger employee. That film was celebrated by the outlet for showing an older, likely post-menopausal woman as sexually driven and autonomous. Her desires were her own; she pursued them without apology; and she survived the consequences through her own strength. According to Allure, close-up shots during intimate scenes reveal no lines, no crepe-like skin, no visible signs of aging.

The different beauty narratives

Both films position older women as sexual and desirable, which represents progress for Hollywood representation. Yet they deliver conflicting messages about beauty and aging. In “Babygirl,” Kidman’s face adheres to the traditional Hollywood formula: an actor over 50 who appears significantly younger on screen. Colman’s face in “Wicker” abandons that formula entirely. She is shown as sexually alive while looking her actual age. Neither approach is inherently wrong, but they suggest different answers to a crucial question: does a woman need to erase her aging to be portrayed as desirable?

What ‘Wicker’ Gets Right About Beauty and Representation

The visual achievement of “Wicker” cannot be overstated. An aging female face, marked visibly by decades, is filmed as beautiful without apology or irony. The camera doesn’t shy away from her skin; it treats her as worthy of the same cinematic attention given to younger actors. She is not filmed as a courageous exception or qualified as “beautiful for her age.” She is simply filmed as beautiful. This matters for young women watching, who internalize messages about what aging women are permitted to be on screen. It matters for older women, whose invisibility in media is a well-documented phenomenon. It matters for the beauty industry, which has profited for decades on women’s fear of aging.

Colman’s portrayal also divorces her desirability from aesthetic procedures. Her sexuality and attractiveness emerge from her confidence, her autonomy in choosing her partner, and the contentment radiating from a fulfilling intimate life. She is not sexy because she has performed youth; she is sexy because she is alive and happy.

Where the Narrative Falls Short

The visual and thematic victory becomes complicated by the film’s plot. After establishing the Fisherwoman as someone who chose autonomy over community approval, the story pulls her toward self-doubt and passive victimhood. When she is deceived into believing her husband has fathered a child with another woman, she spirals into hysteria rather than skepticism. The Basketmaker later reveals he created the baby as a cruel prank, prompted by a jealous neighbor, but the Fisherwoman has already descended into despair, believing she has killed her husband and taking on the role of an unwilling stepmother.

Her rescue comes through the reappearance and repair of her wicker husband, who forgives her. The three—Fisherwoman, Wicker Husband, and wicker baby—ride off in the Basketmaker’s cart toward an undefined future. The narrative arc circles back to dependence and traditional female roles: motherhood, forgiveness, reliance on a male figure for happiness. A woman who began the film by rejecting her community’s contempt ends it rescued by the very creation that confused and nearly destroyed her.

The Contradiction at the Heart of the Film

This contradiction between visual representation and narrative structure creates an uncomfortable message. The film celebrates an aging woman’s sexuality and beauty on her own terms, yet the story denies her the agency to match that representation. She is beautiful, she is desirable, she is sexual—but she is not intelligent enough to question an obvious deception, and she is not strong enough to save herself from the consequences of her own gullibility. She requires rescue.

Real progress in how Hollywood portrays older women requires both elements: a visual commitment to showing aging faces as beautiful, paired with narratives that allow those women to remain as shrewd, capable, and autonomous as they are beautiful. “Wicker” achieves one but undermines the other, leaving the viewer caught between celebration and disappointment.

Source: Allure