Wicker Park

Year of release : 2004

Run time : 1h55m

Genre : Drama / Thriller / Romance

Cast : Josh Hartnett, Diane Kruger, Rose Byrne, Matthew Lillard

The movie is based on the 1996 French movie “L’Appartement”.

The movie opens with Matt who thinks he sees his ex girlfriend while on a business meeting at a restaurant with his girlfriend, for whom he was out buying an engagement ring.

Matt has been out of Chicago for 2 years, and just moved back with the girl he’s been dating.

Trying to make a phone call, he overhears the woman talking on the phone, recognizing his ex girlfriend’s voice. This brings back memories, and he remembers how he first saw her, in a video someone brought to the video store he was working at, and then, seeing her on the street, he started following her around.

The woman, Lisa, walks into the shoe store his friend is working at, and he pretends to work there.

Lisa recognized him, and asks him out saying it would be easier than stalking her.

In the present, he needs to board a flight to China, and he lies to his girlfriend he does, while he goes to the hotel he found a key from, in the phone booth he thinks Lisa was in, thinking she’ll be there.

At the hotel, although the water is running, no one is there, and he falls asleep, as while at the restaurant he took a sleeping pill. He leaves in the morning, taking the compact mirror she left behind and the ripped newspaper pieces she left in an ashtray.

From the newspaper article he finds out a man’s wife died, and going to the funeral, he follows the man. The man goes to Lisa’s place, leaving her his key and a letter, under the door. Matt takes the letter, throws it, and writes his own, taking the key.

 

Matt took his friend’s car do to all this. His friend is dating an actress, Alex, who seems to be hot and cold with him.

Matt goes back to the apartment he believes to be Lisa’s and looking around, a woman comes home. She is not Lisa, but she says her name is Lisa, and that she lives there. She also says the man who left the key under the door is stalking her, and that she’s afraid of him, asking him, a complete stranger who broke in, to stay over.

He does, and at night, she comes to him, and they have s3x.

In the morning, the fake Lisa is happy to have spent the night with him, asking him to stay, while she has to go to work, as she’s a nurse.

Matt leaves after she leaves, and throws the key in the water drainage hole.

The fake Lisa goes to her real home, and we see the real Lisa, staying at her place. We find out she’s been lying to Lisa too, she’s a nurse or a doctor, while she’s an actress.

This is when things start to unravel, as Alex was in love with Matt before she and he met Lisa, and befriending Lisa, she filmed her, and took the footage as it didn’t have sound, to the place Matt was working at.

Now Alex is caught in a web of lies, as she’s been lying to many people she’s someone else, doing different things for a living, and it all seems to catch up with her, and be found out. Will she be able to save face, and keep everyone still tangled in her web of lies and deceit, or not?

The movie started well, but although it had so many things going on, and felt so convoluted, it bored me.

The plot was ridiculous (maybe it would have worked in an era without phones), the characters just as ridiculous and unlikeable. Matt because he has a girlfriend he lies to, looking for his former flame and cheats with Alex. Lisa for not communicating what she wants with Matt when he asked her to move with him to New York, and just leaving without telling him (she just left when he asked her, by the way), leaving a letter for him to her friend (WTF?! She couldn’t call him?!). And Alex for what she did to the both of them, for not being able to talk to Matt about her feelings nor to Lisa about how she felt for Matt.

 

I personally don’t find Diane Kruger beautiful. Rose Byrne who plays Alex and Jessica Pare (the actress who plays Rebecca and looks like Liv Tyler), are more beautiful than her, and I found it hard to believe the whole story, especially since to me she looks normal, but I keep on hearing how beautiful she is, when we have 2 other women in the movie who are more beautiful than her.

The movie title comes from Chicago’s Wicker Park neighbourhood.

The acting was good.

I liked the visual effects, the way the movie was directed, the way it was cut and spliced.

The soundtrack at times was good, at times I didn’t like it.

The movie received negative reviews from the critics of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic (under 40%), but reviews in the 70% from their audiences.

Cinema Score audiences graded it a C+.

The movie grossed 21.6 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 30 million dollars, being a flop.

You can watch the full movie for free on the Ok.Ru platform.

Rating : Could have been a contender !