Wicker Park

Reviewed by Rich Drees

     Matthew (Josh Hartnett) is a rising star in a Chicago advertising firm with a bright future and a lovely fiancée. However, on the eve of flying to China on an important business trip, he overhears a voice that could be Lisa (Diane Kruger), a former girlfriend whose abrupt departure two years earlier without a word, left Matthew confused and heartbroken. Putting his business trip on hold, Matthew enlists the help of his friend Luke (Matthew Lilliard) to help find Lisa. Thinking he’s tracked her to her apartment, he’s surprised to discover that the woman named Lisa living there is not his former lover but another woman named Lisa (Rose Byrne), with whom Matthew has a one-night stand. But as his search for his Lisa continues, it begins to appear that there is a connection between the two Lisas.

     Wicker Park is a remake of Gilles Mimouni’s 1996 film L’Appartement starring Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci. Unfortunately, this Americanization is a flat, tepid mess of a film that captures nothing that made the original interesting. This new version isn’t a psychological thriller, as the characters are too flat and one-dimensional to have any psychology worth examining. Although Matthew states that he has deep feelings for the long-lost Lisa,

     Hartnett has the screen presence of wet cardboard, robbing any scene he’s in of any possible energy. Kruger‘s Lisa is not even a rough sketch of a character, she’s a stick figure, though this more the fault of the script than the actress. Beyond her slim, dancer’s figure and sexy smile, we are shown no reason whatsoever why Matthew is in love with her and why this relationship would still haunt him two years later.

     One intriguing aspect of the original version of this story is the use of flashback to help fill in the details of Matthew and Lisa’s (Max and Lisa in the French version) relationship. While the multiple points of view could make for interesting, Rashomon-like story reveals, director Paul McGuigan bungles the opportunity. His transitions in and out of theses flashback sections are hamfisted in the least, coming off like clumsy swipes of the flashback technique from Highlander (1986).

     Any strength this movie holds in its adhearance to L’Apartment’s original storyline. Where Wicker Park fails is in its own interpretation of its characters. Ultimately, Wicker Park comes off as flat, cold, grey and as seemingly endless as the Chicago winters it is set against.