Wicker Park Information

Wicker Park is a 2004 American psychological drama/romantic mystery film directed by Paul McGuigan and starring Josh Hartnett, Rose Byrne, Diane Kruger and Matthew Lillard. The film is a remake of the 1996 French movie L'Appartement, which in turn is loosely based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. 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.

Plot

Matt Simon, a young advertising executive, returns to Chicago with his fiancée, Rebecca, after spending the last two years in New York. He bumps into his old friend Luke on the way into a meeting at Bellucci's, in preparation for a business trip to China. Once inside he thinks he overhears Lisa, the beautiful dancer he was in love with two years ago when she vanished overnight. He tries to catch her as she leaves but is brought up short by Rebecca, so he ducks out of the trip and embarks on an obsessive search for her, as the story of Matt and Lisa's romance unfolds in flashbacks.

The key card Lisa left at Bellucci's leads Matt to a hotel where he finds Lisa's silver compact and an article marked in the newspaper. He leaves a note for Lisa at Bellucci's, then asks Luke to borrow his car, promising to return it before nightfall. He trails the man from the newspaper article to an apartment, where he discovers a note to Lisa with her key enclosed under the door. The apartment is deserted but Matt leaves her a note himself, to meet him in Wicker Park, and keeps the key. By the time Matt returns the car he is ecstatic because he thinks he has found Lisa, but Luke is furious, because he had a date with a woman named Alex, who won't wait. When Alex calls, Matt takes all the blame and Luke is mollified.

The next day, after waiting in vain at Wicker Park, Matt goes back to the apartment where he is caught by a brunette woman who says that her name is Lisa. She says the apartment is hers, and she has a coat and red-soled shoes with a broken heel identical to Lisa's - shoes that came from Luke's shop, where Lisa first met Matt. She claims the man in the newspaper was stalking her, which is why she was at the hotel, and asks him to stay the night. They end up sleeping together but after she leaves for work he arranges to catch another flight to China and drops the key down a grate. Flashbacks reveal that she is actually Alex, Lisa's old neighbor and friend, and an aspiring actress. We learn that Alex saw Matt and fell in love with him, but before she found the courage to speak to him he fell in love with Lisa. She had told Lisa that she was interested in someone but never told her who he was, even after she realized Lisa had become involved with Matt. In truth, the man from the newspaper was stalking Lisa, and Alex agreed to swap apartments with her for a few days before Lisa leaves for a new job in London.

Luke persuades Matt to come with him that night to see Alex perform in A Midsummer Night's Dream, before he leaves for China. She is unrecognizable in stage makeup, but panics after she sees him in the audience with Luke, until Luke tells her Matt has left for China. But Matt retrieved the key from the grate earlier, and he goes back to the apartment where he spends the night. Alex sleeps at Luke's that night, and when Matt calls Luke she answers the phone, and drops it in a panic. She hears Luke say Matt is at the apartment, and runs out to catch him. After she leaves, Lisa calls. When Alex arrives at the apartment, Matt gives her another pair of red-soled shoes but they are too big. She realizes he suspects something, but Matt says he can exchange them and they go their separate ways.

Matt goes to say goodbye to Luke, but follows him into Bellucci's, where he finds Alex, and her deception is revealed. She admits she was in love with Matt, and wound up doing crazy things. Two years ago, the same day that Matt asked Lisa to move in with him, Lisa was offered a last minute job touring with a company in Europe and she had to jump on a plane. Lisa gave Alex a note to deliver to Matt, along with a key to his apartment, and when Alex arrived she tore up the note and deleted all the messages Lisa had left for him on his answering machine. He never learned why Lisa left, and Alex told Lisa that she'd seen Matt with another woman. Luke interrupts, telling Matt that Lisa called, and wants him to meet her at 3 at Wicker Park before she leaves for London. Matt heads to Wicker Park but he is too late. He races to the airport, where he bumps into Rebecca, who has come to pick him up from the business trip that he never went on. He admits that he still loves someone else, and she leaves, while Lisa crouches nearby on the phone listening to Alex confess what she has done. As Lisa hangs up and begins to cry, Matt spies her through the crowd. He starts crying too, and when he comes up behind her, she turns around and they embrace.

Cast

• Josh Hartnett as Matt Simon
• Rose Byrne as Alex Denver
• Diane Kruger as Lisa Parish
• Matthew Lillard as Luke Stanford
• Jessica Paré as Rebecca Martin
• Christopher Cousins as Daniel Ristelli
• Amy Sobol as Ellie
• Ted Whittall as Walter Smith

Production

Brendan Fraser and Freddie Prinze, Jr. were originally considered for the role of Matt, with Joel Schumacher set to direct the film. Paul Walker was cast in the main role, but dropped out due to complications with the filming of 2 Fast 2 Furious and Josh Hartnett immediately signed on to replace him.

Reception

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 121 critics, with an average rating of 4.3 out of 10.

However, Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper gave the film "two thumbs up" on Ebert & Roeper.

Filmed on a budget of $30 million, Wicker Park grossed only $21 million worldwide, making it a box office bomb.

See also

• Wicker Park (soundtrack)