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Poster (c) MGM
Matt (Hartnett) is an up-and-coming investment banker in Chicago, who's almost engaged and is about to take an important business trip to China. However, he thinks he sees his long-lost love Lisa (Diane Kruger, the face that launched 1,000 ships in Troy). He cancels his trip and goes around looking for her. Obvious clues are left along the way for Matt to get to Lisa. When Matt breaks and enters into an apartment he thinks is Lisa's, it turns out to be someone else's whose name is also Lisa (Rose Byrne). They become involved (so that's three people in one movie, in a span of a few days?).
The direction and writing usually go hand in hand in movies, but here in Wicker Park, they couldn't be any more different. The writing, by Brandon Boyce (whose only other script was Apt Pupil), is laughable bad and absurd. It seems like the script tries to be all Tarantinoesque by having various flashbacks that come in at various times, for various lengths, and often tell us things that we already got. Before the first flashback comes, we see that Matt obsesses over Lisa, but why? We barely even see her in times that aren't flashbacks, so why are we supposed to care about Matt's obsession if it takes too long to find out anything about Lisa, their relationship, or even Matt? And the plot is construed in such an indecipherable manner, it's impossible to place order, unlike, say, Pulp Fiction. Events occur in random order, whether or not they're flashbacks, which leads up to the audience just not caring what happens. And then there's a completely implausible "confession" scene at the end (actually, like five of them), which definitely wouldn't happen in real life, and probably didn't happen in L'Appartement, the film on which Wicker Park is based.
On the other hand, Paul McGuigan handles the awful material like a pro. The opening credit sequence is annoying, but there's a good amount of amazing camera shots, and some very cool, subtle split-screening. McGuigan meticulously works with the script to make it work as well as possible. He obviously doesn't want to screw around with it, but he does what he can, and pulls it off spectacularly. He makes some semblance of everything, and keeps some mystery of what will happen into it. Not much, because it's pretty obvious, but some nonetheless.
Hartnett puts in a performance that seems straight out of acting school. His hand gestures are deliberate, as are his vocal inflections. Balancing him out was the spectacular Byrne, doing a chilling job, although she'll be forgotten because of the absurdity of the material she had to work with. And in the middle was Kruger, putting in an average job, but looking pretty hot nonetheless. The acting was like the rest of the movie: some was great, some was awful, but I doubt any part is good enough to recommend the movie.
Rated PG-13 for sexuality and language.
Review Date: September 12, 2004