Wicker Park (film)
| Wicker Park | |
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 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Paul McGuigan |
| Produced by | Gary Lucchesi Andre Lamal Marcus Viscidi |
| Screenplay by | Brandon Boyce |
| Based on | L'Appartement by Gilles Mimouni |
| Starring | Josh Hartnett Rose Byrne Diane Kruger Matthew Lillard |
| Music by | Cliff Martinez |
| Cinematography | Peter Sova |
| Editing by | Andrew Hulme |
| Studio | Lakeshore Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | September 3, 2004 |
| Running time | 114 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30 million |
| Box office | $21,568,818 |
Wicker Park is a 2004 American psychological drama/romantic mystery film directed by Paul McGuigan and starring Josh Hartnett. The film is a remake of the 1996 French movie L'Appartement. It was nominated for the Grand Prix at the Montreal Film Festival, the city in which the movie was partially filmed.
The title refers to the Wicker Park neighborhood on Chicago's near northwest side.
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[edit] Plot
Matt Simon (Josh Hartnett), a young advertising executive, returns to Chicago with his fiancé, Rebecca (Jessica Paré), after spending the last two years in New York. While in Bellucci's, on a business meeting, he thinks he spots Lisa (Diane Kruger), a woman with whom he had fallen deeply in love with and had then vanished without a trace. Matt puts his life and his business trip to China on hold and is caught in an obsessive search for her.
With a little help from his friend Luke (Matthew Lillard), Matt tries to track Lisa down. His detective work leads him to a hotel room; but, instead of Lisa, he finds her old compact. He is directed to her apartment and, with a key left by Daniel (Christopher Cousins), he enters. He realizes that someone is in the room and presumes her to be Lisa. The woman he meets tells him that she is Lisa (Rose Byrne). She asks him to stay the night because she is afraid of a man who has been stalking her for several days; Matt agrees, and the two end up sleeping together.
In the morning she leaves for work, telling him she's a nurse. On her way, we witness a flashback which reveals that she's actually Alex, Lisa's neighbor and friend. We learn that Alex saw Matt and fell in love with him, and that the day she came to speak with him was the day he fell in love with Lisa.
In the present, Alex has been dating Matt's friend Luke and working as a theater artist (not a nurse) and, when she finds out about Matt's return to town, she again plans to fulfil her dream and tries to stop him from finding Lisa. Meanwhile, Matt and Lisa cross paths a few time, never noticing one another. Matt begins to suspect something and eventually uncovers Alex's plan after he buys her a pair of shoes, the same pair of shoes Lisa broke at the restaurant and which she bought from Matt two years earlier, and discovers that they're too big for her. He knows something is up because Lisa's same size broken shoes are at that apartment.
Matt follows Alex and reaches the restaurant where she's having lunch with Luke. Matt finally sees through her; Alex admits that Lisa left for Europe, leaving a letter for Matt telling him that she loved him. Alex didn't deliver the letter and instead deleted all the messages Lisa left for Matt (using the key Lisa gave her to his apartment so that she could drop the letter off); in the meantime, she told Lisa that she'd seen Matt with another woman.
Luke tells Matt that Lisa called and said to ask Matt to meet her at 3 and that he'll know where. Alex tells him Lisa is leaving for London. Matt heads to Wicker Park but he is too late. He races to the airport, where he meets Rebecca (his girlfriend) there to pick him up from the business trip that he never went on. He admits to her that he loves someone else, and she leaves. Elsewhere, Lisa is crouched on the floor talking to Alex on the phone, as Alex confesses what she has done. Matt spots Lisa as she hangs up and begins to cry. He goes over, crouches behind her and starts crying. She turns around and they embrace.
[edit] Cast
- Josh Hartnett as Matt Simon
- Matthew Lillard as Luke Stanford
- Diane Kruger as Lisa Parish
- Rose Byrne as Alex Denver
- Jessica Paré as Rebecca Martin
- Christopher Cousins as Daniel Ristelli
- Amy Sobol as Ellie
- Ted Whittall as Walter Smith
[edit] Reception
[edit] Critical response
The film received negative reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 23% based on reviews from 118 critics, with an average rating of 4.3 out of 10.[1]
Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper gave the film "two thumbs up" on Ebert & Roeper.[2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Wicker Park (2004)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wicker_park/. Retrieved 2010-01-22.
- ^ Ebert & Roeper review
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Wicker Park |
- Official website
- Wicker Park at the Internet Movie Database
- Wicker Park at AllRovi
- Wicker Park at Rotten Tomatoes
- Wicker Park at Box Office Mojo
- Wicker-Park at Metacritic
- L'Appartement on Wicker Park: Detailed comparison between original and remake
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