We find out that Lisa was the mysterious girl Matt wanted to hook up with. They hook up and fall in love. One day Lisa just disappears. He has a new girlfriend, Rebecca. At a restaurant he thinks he sees and hears Lisa. This sends him on a trail to find her. He skips his business trip to china All his detective work leads him to the apartment of Alex. But she claims she's Lisa.
She just happens to have the same name and shoes. Matt begins to think something is fishy. He starts not believing her and continues his search. She tries to stop him. Taking some minor stuff out, what ends up happening is Luke, Matt's good friend, going out with a girl who Matt never sees.
Turns out, it's Alex. She is just using Luke to get close to Matt, who eventually finds out Alex? Two years pass. Matthew is engaged to Rebecca Jessica Pare. He is supposed to fly to China to seal a deal for her father's firm, but in a restaurant, he thinks he sees Lisa. This leads him on a trail involving mysterious addresses, hotel room keys and notes that are, or are not, received by those they are intended for. Since he originally met Lisa by following her like a stalker, and since he searches for her now by acting the same way, past and present mingle delightfully, and we're not always sure if he's following the Lisa he wants to meet, or the Lisa he's lost.
They start dating each other. Luke is Matthew's best friend, but Alex doesn't know that. Alex becomes Lisa's friend, but Lisa doesn't know And I won't even mention the true object of Alex's erotomania. The strange thing is, I liked all of this while it was happening. The movie is a remake of "L'Appartement," a French film I did not see -- which is just as well, because the new American film " Criminal " is a remake of " Nine Queens ," a Argentinian film I did see, so that I knew everything that was going to happen.
Once we understand the principle if not the details of the plot, "Wicker Park" works because the actors invest their scenes with what is, under the circumstances, astonishing emotional realism. There's a scene between Josh Hartnett and Rose Byrne during which so much is said, and left unsaid, that we feel real sympathy for both characters.
There's an open innocence to the way Matthew Lillard's character fails to realize he is about to become an innocent bystander. And Diane Kruger, whose Lisa is subjected to logical whiplash by the plot, always seems to know when it is and how she should feel.
Now that's acting. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from until his death in In , he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Once again, we have a movie that is more exciting in its basic ideas than satisfying in its execution.
But those ideas are worth exploring: telling a story through character-imagined flashbacks where all the major characters are creative artists. Each of the characters presents according to their narrative constraints.
The guy is a photographer, so works with movie- based images. Indeed the whole thing could be seen as a movie fantasy played out in a glance at a video shop. The original love is a dancer, and is limited to a narrative bound by physical presence. The alternative love is an actress playing an actress. More, just as Josh's film and drug haze is folded into this movie, so is Rose's play within the play - which happens to be Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' where lovers' identities are switched It is a sweet construction that is more of a complex idea and incomplete sketch than a mature narrative.
But it has some strong moments when the Shakespeare play is happening and unhappening as you see Rose remove her makeup in a backwards application. In comparison, the shoe thing is clumsy. As it unravels, it becomes a mere con for love. The end is unsatisfactory, radically compromised to be 'happy. Not the dancer who gave up when she moved away. Not the very much prettier boss's daughter who seems resigned to marrying the firm's new blood.
Instead, it is the one who commits everything. Love is always having to say you're sorry, but never needing to. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements. Somehow the remake of a better French film should have been avoided at all costs. This film has a disorienting feeling the creators have given it as the action takes place in a period of two years.
Some viewers will be lost as they watch the story unfold backward, then leap forward without making a lot of sense. The story of Matt and Lisa is told in flashbacks. Matt's obsession when he sees Lisa again, after some time, proves to be too much for him, as he has to go back and find her. Matt, who is going to marry the ambitious Rebecca, falls into a trance like state when he follows the clues that will take him back to Lisa. The fact that Alex, a woman who likes to impersonate a friend who has been too kind to her, plays into the plot until everything comes together when Matt finally finds the love of his life.
Scarecrow 17 January Twisty, flashback and forth "romantic" well, sort of melodrama has Rose Byrne stealing the film as a lovestruck theatre actress doing everything she can to keep performance artist Diane Kruger and ad exec Josh Hartnett apart. Responsible for the distance that kept Hartnett and Kruger from living together and continuing their romance, Byrne wants Hartnett for herself, seemingly living in a fantasy where she might have him if her efforts pay off.
It gets complicated when Byrne enters a relationship with Matthew Lillard, Hartnett's pal! It seems Byrne will do whatever it takes--including using the best friend, leading him on to believe there's a possibility of love and romance--to secure Hartnett, but will she be able to continue the deception? The film is challenging, taking us backwards and forwards to show us how Hartnett wound up with the sister of a colleague he works for at his firm, why he is so determined to find Krueger, how he first saw Krueger and fell in love immediately, how Byrne found Hartnett and fell in love with him immediately, the steps Byrne took like erasing messages on an answering machine, holding onto a letter, using phone calls to draw Krueger away where she can't be seen by Hartnett, sleeping in Krueger's place and taking her name to keep Hartnett from knowing she had returned from Paris, etc to try and maintain the separation Hartnett and Krueger have, how Lillard is kept in the dark regarding Byrne's attraction to Hartnett and why she is so elusive towards him emotionally Hartnett doesn't realize Byrne and Lillard are dating, either!
All four performers put forth all the effort their talents could afford, with Byrne positing all the anguish and heart-felt desire her lovelorn character goes through. The obsessive quest of Hartnett to find his beloved before and after he gains her love can be borderline creepy at times in her apartment, for instance or watching her while she trains at a gym , but when Coldplay starts up at the end, you kind of can't help but celebrate their coming together.
Lillard, unfortunately, is stuck as the odd man out who was being led around for no purpose other than to be dumped when the time was apt. The difficult labyrinthine nature for which the plot is told could frustrate some, but I found the direction rather compelling in how Byrne, in particular, unfolds before us as a bone of contention against Hartnett and Krueger.
Unconventional storytelling that toys with missed opportunities and serendipity gone awry. Although it is extremely difficult to make her unglamorous, Byrne is presented early on as less than desirable she's rather drab, with unsophisticated eyeliner , but after some time it is quite clear there's a lovely woman underneath the humble looks. Love drives some people to do crazy, insane things in Scottish director Paul McGuigan's new movie "Wicker Park," a confusing, often exasperating, flashback-within-a-flashback, pseudo- erotic thriller about relationships that relies heavily on mistaken identities, improbable coincidences, and unrequited romance.
Grim and humorless throughout its maudlin minute running time, this over-heated heart-breaker about twentysomethings who think with their hormones might have succeeded splendidly as a madcap, door-slamming, bedroom farce. Unfortunately, acclaimed "Gangster No.
The action wanders aimlessly for about an hour and the dramatic pay-offs yield few surprises. At the same time, she dates perennial best friend character actor Matthew Lillard and devastates the chump.
Not surprisingly, the lanky Lillard steals the show as Luke. He plays the stereotypically wacky, whiny braggart who constantly gets the shaft. Hilariously, Lillard wears his hair as if he were auditioning for the live-action version of "Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius. Rebecca uses the occasion to remind Matthew about their impending marriage. This none-too-subtle reminder unhinges our hero momentarily, and he excuses himself to make a phone call. Finding the phone booth occupied, he enters the gent's nearby and hears the voice of the woman on the phone through a ventilator shaft.
The voice reminds Matthew of the girlfriend he hasn't been able to banish from his memories, Lisa Diane Kruger , who inexplicably walked out on him. Sensitive, lachrymose lad that he is, Matthew never recovered from the shock of losing Lisa. Rushing out of the men's room, he catches a glimpse of Lisa as she scrambles out the door. Matthew checks the phone booth. He has a flashback to their first encounter at a shoe-store where best bud Luke Matthew Lillard of the "Scooby-Doo" movies works.
In a "Cinderella" like fairy tale scene, Matthew kneels at Lisa's feet and struggles to find her a pair of shoes that fit. Although she doesn't buy any shoes, Lisa dates Matthew, and they become inseparable. She dances in the theater, and he works at a photo-repair shop when he isn't snapping pictures. Eventually, he gets a higher paying job in New York City and asks Lisa to join him. When she leaves without a word, Matthew goes to the Big Apple and achieves some success as an advertising executive.
After this flashback, Matthew discovers Lisa's motel room key in the phone booth and races off to the Drake Motel. He winds up narrowly missing Lisa but spends the night sleeping in her bed. Not long afterward, Matthew tracks Lisa down to an apartment and uses another key he stole from under her doorway to get inside and await her return. Clearly, the Hartnell character has gone off the deep end. Earlier, he slept in her bed in the motel and didn't get caught.
Now, he invades her apartment and collects her belongings as if they were souvenirs. Initially, she treats him as an intruder and tries to dial As it turns out in Boyce's twisting-turning-turgid melodramatic script, Alex has been pursuing Matthew without telling him about her obsession.
Yes, she has a serious crush on him! Not only is she Lisa's best friend, but also she does her best to break up Lisa and Matthew, so she can get Matthew!
No sooner has one character experienced a flashback than another character undergoes one, and "Wicker Park" turns into a wicked arabesque of intrigue maze that confuses us as much as the couples. McGuigan and Boyce complicate matters by adopting the "Rashomon" storytelling strategy, where each character gives an account of the story from their perspective. Originally, the Hartnett character was bound for China, but he hangs around Chicago after he spots Lisa.
By far, Rose's Alex ranks as the most compelling and responsible character, though never as amusing as Lillard's snake-bitten Romeo.
Tiresome and tedious at best with its inevitable sappy ending, "Wicker Park" qualifies as a substandard soap opera. Hitchcock should be receiving residuals from beyond the grave at this point since filmmakers today have been borrowing liberally from the Master since his demise nearly 25 years ago and the latest attempt may have even had Hitch shaking his head in disbelief. Hartnett perhaps the most plastic actor since Keanu Reeves stars as a semi-successful junior ad exec who is about to be married to the gorgeous Pare but things take a sudden change for the indifferent when by a chance glance Hartnett sees what he believes to be his real true love some two years past who inexplicably ditched him in the snowy environs of the titular Chicago offering.
Instead of going to China on a very important business trip Hartnett decides to try to track down the mysterious woman who he is convinced is Kruger, who came into his life as sudden as her disappearance. Obsessed is hardly a convenient term to try to attempt to explain the offerings at hand as Hartnett traipses all over the Windy City in his vain lunge at a romance long past. Is she a figment of his overworked and stressed imagination or the real deal? Byrne you see is in love with Hartnett unbeknownst to him and figures largely in the chicanery on display.
To see it is hard to believe it yet somehow this hodgepodge of inept acting and too-pleased with itself camera-work and editing trickery makes it work! I know, I was equally baffled in the first half of the film saying this is so gonna suck and then when Byrne makes her unannounced entrance the film turns itself inside out and runs the gamut of hard to swallow plot contrivances but I'll be damned if it didn't get my attention and wonder just how the heck this was gonna get resolved.
Although Hartnett's quizzical bland looks he reminds me of the idiot jock in high school the class brain would be saddled with to tutor trig to he is ably supported by Kruger late of 'Troy' who shows she is a pretty decent actress and not just a pretty face; Lillard at his goofy amiable and Byrne who I nearly forgot she too was in 'Troy' who resembles Winona Ryder, is the best thing about this film as the head case who makes Glenn Close look stable in 'Fatal Attraction'.
Enough said; wouldn't want to ruin it should you venture out to see it on the next flight you take that is. A guilty pleasure rental for future romantic masochists; you know who you are.
I haven't seen the highly regarded original French film "L'Appartement" of which "Wicker Park" is a remake, but there is one specific plot point - the non-use of cell-phones - that seems to be carried over from the film and is much harder to swallow in Also, the ending is a tad conventional.
Other than that, however, "Wicker Park" is a very good movie: visually hypnotic, emotionally compelling, and intellectually challenging. It is put together like a puzzle, jumping back and forth in time, with a remarkable attention to detail; midway through it even shifts perspectives and makes you re-consider who is actually the main character in the story!
Josh Hartnett is fine, but Rose Byrne steals the show with her affecting performance. An underrated film. Rather it embarks upon the disappearance of his lady love who he discovers two years later. He is now engaged and about to close a business deal but he seeks answers. With striking Chicago locations director Paul McGuigan presents numerous surprises.
One of Hartnett's best performances as a guy tortured by the disappearance of his girlfriend and the agitation in his search for answers. In his search he ends up juggling three different women, one whom he desires, one whom his desire long since died, and one whom left him feeling betrayed. Diane Kruger plays his past girlfriend in a role that is mysterious and only figured out in the end.
Great supporting work by Matthew Lillard as Hartnett's best friend whom works in a shoe store, and doesn't realize that his girlfriend hasn't the love to return that he has given. Rose Byrne play's Lillard's girlfriend who is a strange theatrical actress, but she becomes involved with Hartnett after one captivating encounter.
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