Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
JOSH HARTNETT AT HIS BEST, January 4, 2005
WARNING: SPOILERS TOWARDS THE END...I went into this movie thinking that it would be an entirely different thing, more fatal attraction than what it actually was. However, seeing the movie, I can understand how some people might feel as if they were jipped because the actual movie is different than what the previews make it out to be, but the truth of it is, this movie tells about the consequences of how one person can affect all those around them. In this way, I believe that its more real life than hollywood. Although I admit, the movie can be slow in the middle, especially when the viewer figures out whats happening and whats going to happen faster than the movie moves, it is towards the end where the plot really starts to pick up and I guarantee you, at the very end when Josh Hartnett and Diane Kruger are just about to find each other, but yet keep on missing each other by fate, you literally want to scream and throw something because you want it as much as they do. Its a great movie, but only for those that can appreciate it for what it is, a story about unbreakable love between two people struggling to get through all odds and accept it for what its not, a high-paced thriller.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
O Lisa! Lisa! Wherefore Art Thou Lisa?, September 5, 2004
This film vacillates between romance, mystery and occasional flashes of humor, and the story is accompanied by a varied and sometimes overly loud sountrack. It is simultaneously a story of lost opportunities, the search for closure, and the pursuit of a dream (or is it a romantic obsession?) sequenced in an interesting and clever manner by Director Paul McGuigan. It is almost two hours in length and the storyline takes shape slowly at the beginning, so a theatergoer should be prepared for it to take a while to become involved with the characters and for the pace to accelerate.
The movie opens with Matt (Josh Hartnett) rushing to a Chicago restaurant to meet his girlfriend and her family before he is scheduled to leave for Shanghai on a business trip. (He is employed by his girlfriend's brother.) Luke (Matthew Lillard), an old friend who does not know that Matt has returned to Chicago from living in NYC, spots him on the street as he is about to enter the restaurant and Matt promises that they will get together when he returns from China. While making a visit to the restroom after using the pretext of the need to make a phone call (apparently he doesn't own a cell phone) when the discussion of marriage was brought up, Matt accidentally overhears a phone conversation involving a woman who apparently fears for her safety. Once he concentrates upon the call, he is convinced it is the voice of his former girlfriend Lisa, who mysteriously disappeared overnight two years ago. Her unexplained absence after failing to meet her for a planned rendezvous in WICKER PARK caused the heartbreak which resulted in his decision to move to NYC. The woman rushes from the restaurant before he can confront her, but he finds a hotel key left folded in a newspaper in the phone booth. One of the few predictable moments in the movie occurs when Matt decides he has to attempt to locate the woman and determine if it is indeed Lisa, with whom he is still obsessed.
So, Matt's odyssey begins. He enlists Luke's help, who is of course stunned that Matt would postpone his business trip and take the chance of completely ruining his current relationship. However, in a flashback we soon discover that Luke played a significant role in Matt's initial meeting with Lisa (Diane Kruger). Furthermore, the state of Luke's relationship with his girlfriend and budding actress Alex (Rose Byrne) leaves a lot to be desired. The complexity of the interrelationships betwen the characters is gradually revealed, and while the surprise at the center of the story is not as great as that in the SIXTH SENSE, many of the same cinematic techniques of time shifting, misdirection, and well disguised clues are employed. Since I do not want to include any spoilers, I will simply summarize the story by saying that the tension builds gradually as the degree of the manipulation resulting from the romantic obsession of one of the characters is gradually revealed.
This is not a film for moviegoers who like linear plot expositions and easily categorizable stories. The element which causes it to rise above the usual mundane two or three star film about a manipulative psycho acting out a romantic fantasy is the structure of the film. The story is told in very nonlinear fashion, with cuts to flashbacks of events two years ago becoming more frequent as the film proceeds. Flashbacks to events that have just transpired are also interspersed, but these are experienced from the point of view of other than the primary narrator Matt. On occasion the technique was disorienting until I became accustomed to it, because the viewer has to figure out when the action is occuring. But if you stay alert, it was a very efective way of illuminating the events involved and adding contex through the rapidly changing perspectives. I definitely would have to watch the film again in order to see how often such juxtapositions could actually be recognized by an alert moviegoer and how many were totally a function of utilizing closeups which obscured the totality of the action. In summary, this is a technically interesting and well acted film telling a moderately interesting. The tension is palpable, because the viewer is never sure until the end whether it is primarily a romance or a psyhological thriller. (I certainly won't tell!) In conclusion, this is a story of both shattered lives and restored dreams.
Tucker Andersen
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
"Love makes you do crazy things..." really crazy, September 15, 2004
Run for your life -- it's a Hollywood remake of a French film. "Wicker Park" is an adaptation of the French film "L'Appartment," but being remade in a Chicago setting doesn't do anything for the plot. If anything, the tepid acting and weird script drag down the worthy original film.
A few years ago, Matt (Josh Harnett) was madly in love with Lisa (Diane Kruger), but she vanished mysteriously after not showing up for a meeting with him. Heartbroken, Matt moved from Chicago to NYC. Now he's in another relationship, and is working for his girlfriend's brother. All is well with the world, it seems. But when he stops in Chicago before a business trip, he hears a woman's voice making a phone call -- and becomes convinced that it's Lisa.
Desperate to find Lisa again, Matt enlists his smooth-spoken pal Luke (Matthew Lillard) to help him find Lisa again. He has become obsessed with finding the woman he believes is his one true love. But he runs into another woman (Rose Byrne) who is as obsessed with him as he is with Lisa, and who will do anything to make him hers...
"Men who stalk are true romantics. Women who stalk are lunatics." Not a sentiment I have any liking for, but it's at the core of "Wicker Park." While pretty to look at, this film expects the audience to see the soap-esque scenario as being a representation of true love and obsession. Instead, it feels stylized to the point of being surreal. In a nutshell: Even strange people don't act the way they do in this film.
Paul McGuigan attempts to give this movie a deep, symbolic, artistic feel. Not to mention a soft-edged Tarantino look, with all the flashbacks and the non-linear style. Can he handle it? Not really. More often than not, the movie seems to be getting out of control. Taken purely for visuals, it is a very pretty movie -- lots of beautiful light, shadow, snow and a dreamlike quality.
Josh Harnett gives a practiced but not very compelling turn as Matt. Maybe he would have done better had his character not been a stalker -- the scene where he breaks into the hotel room is simply freaky. Diane Kruger displays her pretty face, but little acting ability or presence. It's Rose Byrne and Matthew Lillard who redeem the acting, with their nuanced performances and hints of real emotion.
Neither a romantic thriller nor a suspense flick, this film isn't sure what to be. While pretty to look at, and having some solid performances, "Wicker Park" stumbles over its own delusions of grandeur.
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