'Wicker Park' review

A French film remake set in Chicago by way of Hollywood

By Dean Ramos
Published: September 10th, 2004 | 2:21pm

Gilles Mimouni’s gripping 1996 French film L’Appartement is nearly impossible to find here in the States, so it’s a safe bet that director Paul McGuigan didn’t expect his audience to be terribly familiar with it when he directed the American remake, Wicker Park. Although not necessarily a bad movie (though hardly worth listing on one’s resume), it suffers the usual pitfalls that Hollywood translations of foreign films usually entail.

A story of lost love and obsession, it stars Josh Hartnett as an engaged Chicago ad exec who’s bound for Tokyo on a business trip. Just before leaving, he thinks he hears the voice of Lisa (Diane Kruger), an old flame who disappeared from his life two years earlier. Putting everything, including his career and engagement, on hold to find this woman, his efforts are exponentially complicated by Lisa’s meddling, supposed best friend Alex (played superbly by the exquisite Rose Byrne), who just so happens to be dating Matthew’s best friend, the sweet but dopey Luke (Matthew Lillard).

As contrived as all these coincidences may sound, they aren’t the movie’s main problems. Those stem from characterization, performances from three-fourths of the cast, dizzying editing and camera work, and a change in the original plot so significant that the remainder of Wicker Park feels forced and is riddled with plot holes the size of the ocean.

<img alt="wickerpark3.jpg" src="http://venuszine.com/stories/wickerpark3.jpg" width="180" height="138" border="0" align="right" vspace="5" hspace="5"/>The problems start early on in Wicker Park. When Matthew first thinks he hears Lisa’s voice, we’re left wondering why we should care, as how nothing has been established to make us feel much of anything. This is strange, given that by the same point in L’Appartement, the tension and longing between Vincent Cassel (the male lead) and Monica Bellucci (as Lisa) is almost palpable, and resonates deeply. Later, we’re still not really given any reason to care for Kruger’s character, which is especially odd, as she and Bellucci are given almost the exact same amount of screen time in both pictures. This points to differences in the script given to each actress, as well as those in their interpretation of the role. For example, in a key scene that is meant to show how charming and beguiling Kruger’s character is, she comes off instead as conceited, vain, and even a bit cold. Bellucci, on the other hand, is simply absorbing, a quality that goes far beyond the former model’s stunning beauty, and one that earned her the European equivalent of an Oscar for her performance.

<img alt="wickerpark.jpeg" src="http://venuszine.com/stories/wickerpark.jpeg" width="180" height="166" border="0" align="left" vspace="5" hspace="5"/>Don’t expect any similar recognition for Wicker Park, with the possible exception of Rose Byrne’s standout performance, which is the best thing about the film. Byrne, in fact, does an even better job than her European predecessor, Romane Bohringer. Alex is supposed to be manipulating rather than threatening: Bohringer’s portrayal simply made you despise her, while Byrne’s characterization inspires sympathy towards this overly introverted, mousy girl. There’s even a scene between Alex and Matthew that almost completely redeems the character and validates the entire film in the process, but unfortunately, that’s when the most significant of changes to the plot take shape. As for Lillard, while he occasionally supplies a nice touch of comic relief, there are other moments when his humorous portrayal as the goofy best friend seems out of place in such a melodramatic movie. That certainly wasn’t the case with his character’s original interpreter, Jean-Philippe Ecoffey.

While there have been complaints about the use of flashbacks in both films, they’re somewhat unwarranted — even if the stories are not told in chronological order, they’re easy enough to follow. But with his dizzying camera shots and overly stylish editing techniques, it’s obvious that unlike Mimouni, McGuigan isn’t so much concerned with telling a good story as he is with appearing to be innovative — his insistence on such unnecessary flamboyance is evident in scenes as simple as Alex performing Shakespeare or removing her make-up.

Wicker Park’s most glaring flaw, however, is McGuigan’s alteration of a certain aspect of L’Appartement’s plot. Without wanting to give too much away, by the remake’s end, viewers are left wondering about the meaning of particular events, as they are never resolved or explored further. Given its contrived and seemingly tacked-on ending (one that destroys any sense of suspense or danger generated early in the film), it’s easy to come to accompanying conclusion that American filmmakers who remake European films simply don’t give audiences on this side of the Atlantic enough credit for liking movies that don’t follow Hollywood’s by-the-numbers formula.

Ultimately, Wicker Park is just an abundantly stylish and good-looking movie in both cast and backdrop that completely undermines its predecessor’s suspense and intent, and whose performers (excepting Byrne) are far outshined by their French counterparts. With any luck, it will serve as a reminder to future directors that if they truly love and admire a film, they should simply recommend it to others instead of attempting to interpret it themselves.