Paul McGuigan tried to make an intelligent remake of the French film "L'Appartement." He had color themes, mixed timelines, big stars and a popular screenplay from which to draw. God knows where he went wrong.
"Wicker Park" is a film about a big tangled love mess. Josh Hartnett ("Pearl Harbor," "40 Days and 40 Nights") plays Matthew, a young man who has grudgingly given up on photography to be a businessman in his girlfriend's brother's international corporation. He's considering marrying the girl. In the middle of a restaurant meeting, he thinks he's spotted an ex-love.
"The one that got away" is named Lisa, (Diane Kruger, "Troy"). He sees her familiar black-and-red shoe bottom as she runs off (the beginning of a two-minute black-and-red color theme).
He tries to chase her down and instead ends up in the apartment of a girl (Rose Byrne) who becomes obsessed with him. What do you know? Her name's Lisa too. Or is it?
It's not. Her name is really Alex. It's that sort of movie.
To top off the love quadrangle, Matthew's best friend Luke (Matthew Lillard, "SLC Punk") falls in love with Alex. Luke drives his mid-'60s Ford Mustang in the Chicago winter. Minus 19 points.
From there on out, it's a horribly disjointed series of beautiful people doing ugly things. Sort of ugly anyway. The peak of Alex's obsessive "stalking" activity comes to a head as she deletes messages from Lisa off Matthew's recorder. This is supposed to be "creepy."
Maybe McGuigan's error was casting Josh Hartnett for the lead. Hartnett couldn't play dead to save his life. Nor could he act his way out of a paper bag. Mixed metaphors are great. In any event, all of Matthew's reactions are viciously overacted.
Word has it that Josh Hartnett is attractive. Maybe in a pinch, but he certainly isn't the type who can pull off any look a director hands him. He is not a sensitive art boy. No matter how many Celtic globes he gets tattooed on his shoulder blade, and no matter how many knitted hats he wears sagging off his coif.
Diane Kruger might have been a fatal error as well. She's a French actress who ought to be a runway model. She's gorgeous, and aesthetically, she's perfect for the part. But she doesn't know how to conceal her French accent. The film takes place in Chicago, and her lines slip in and out of the appropriate dialect. It limits her, as it's the only poor aspect of her performance.
It might have been his strategy of increasing tension by freezing the frame and cutting to a flashback or flash-forward. The problem is, he relies so heavily on this technique that it becomes too difficult to figure out what happened. The timelines are sorted as a spilt box of pick-up sticks.
A big plot fault is Matthew's complete lack of commitment to the girl he thought he was prepared to marry. He ditches her at moment's notice and never looks back. This finalized the falling out in the suspension of disbelief.
So no, it's not good. However, there was one small redeeming point for "Wicker Park." It's not often that a movie truly captures the utter confusion of a tangled hearts situation. Perhaps some of this was aided by the negative quality of a convoluted plot. It's one step forward for two steps back, but at least McGuigan isn't walking backwards the whole way.
