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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Wicker Park
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 35 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Romance | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Brandon Boyce
Gilles Mimouni (film L'Appartement)
Directed by: Paul McGuigan
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 3, 2004
DVD: December 28, 2004
Running Time: 114 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sexuality and language
Starring Josh Hartnett, Rose Byrne, Diane Kruger, Matthew Lillard, Jessica Paré, Christopher Cousins, and Gillian Ferrabee
Intricately moving back and forth in time and revealing the story from each character's perspective, Wicker Park is an intense psychological drama about a man (Hartnett) caught in an obsessive search for a woman he fell deeply in love with -- a woman who then vanished without a trace. (MGM)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Gangster No. 1 Lucky Number Slevin The Acid House The Reckoning
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
It would be tempting to say that fractured time sequences in movies have become a cliché, except that Wicker Park makes your brain spin in surprising and pleasurable ways.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Diane Kruger, whose Lisa is subjected to logical whiplash by the plot, always seems to know when it is and how she should feel. Now that's acting.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
The weirdly exhilarating thing about Wicker Park is the reckless abandon with which it embraces the convenience of coincidence, and then the extreme measures it takes to reassure the audience that it's not a movie about coincidence at all.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
As the movie approached the end credits, I cared about what happened to these characters, and that made the coincidences and occasional missteps forgivable.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The film is stylish, the compromising elements that usually junk up a Hollywood "date movie" are nowhere to be seen, the ensemble of supporting actors is strong and, despite a certain woodenness, Hartnett is appealing and mostly very believable.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
This is a smart movie, full of astonishing reverses and switchbacks, and it adroitly walks the thin line between too clever by half and not clever enough by three-quarters.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Movies that are entertainingly nuts don't come around very often, and when they do they need to be given their due.
Read Full Review >Empire Alan Morrison
Aside from Rose Byrne's complex performance, there's nothing here that improves upon the original.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
There are some striking visuals and Hartnett is a magnetic presence.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
If plot were oats, Wicker Park would choke a horse.
Read Full Review >Variety Scott Foundas
All of this was more enjoyable when Bellucci, Cassel and Bohringer were the stars. Hartnett is overly methodical here as Matthew, and Kruger, as in "Troy," is beautiful but lacking in dramatic intensity.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
One too many scenes with Hartnett's genuinely unpleasant doofus drain away any investment in a film that's suddenly become an elaborate farce without jokes.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
To work, it has to make us feel crazy with love, like "Vertigo" did. Instead, it often just makes us feel crazy for believing any of it.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dave Kehr
The French original was a clever Hitchcock homage with a murder at its center. For reasons unknown, the murder plot has been dropped from the remake (though a few confusing traces of it remain), which leaves Wicker Park without much real urgency to drive its extremely contrived plot.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
This American version can't hold a candle to its French counterpart, which was deeply, eerily resonant where this is only frustrating, a Rubik's cube, minus its colorful signage.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Instead of building toward a grand romantic climax, it just gets sillier before exploding into a torrent of unintended laughs.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
In the end it doesn't lead to much beyond weepy melodrama. Still, McGuigan draws committed performances from a talented cast.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
You have to applaud for sheer folly. This doesn't just reprise another film. It reprises a French film.
Read Full Review >Premiere Aaron Hillis
What begins as a pleasantly utilitarian thriller gradually decays into a mediocre suspense drama and ends as an irritatingly feeble love story.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
One of the silliest, most sieve-like screenplays of the year.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Structure overwhelms everything, but it's not as if Wicker Park has nothing to say. It's full of ugly truths about emotional frailty, and implies that stalking is a bad thing only when you're not charming enough about it.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
An elegant tale of romantic obsession weighed down by a needlessly convoluted plot that yields far more confusion than psychological suspense.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
May have been adapted the 1996 French film "L'Appartement," but pretty much all evidence of what was once an engaging psychodrama has been lost in the translation.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Takes plenty of twists and turns, each so implausible and silly that you have no interest whatsoever in finding out what the next one will be. The director, Paul McGuigan, is fond of fancy split-screen effects and stylish, snappy cutting, but he can't tell a story to save his life.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
A convoluted exercise in shifting perspectives and fractured storytelling.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson
If Alfred Hitchcock were retarded, lobotomized, and freshly dug up, he might possibly c--- out a movie like this one.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
The studio behind Wicker Park bills it as a "romantic thriller.'' But it's actually an example of an even more unusual subgenre: the dumb, suspense- free and undersexed stalker drama.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
The whole incoherent mess is sort of like a downbeat Gap ad, only longer and a lot more boring.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer David Hiltbrand
A dementedly artificial and artsy film, a headache-inducing jumble of fractured narrative, flashbacks within flashbacks, and shifting perspectives.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman
Built on such a goofy premise that your average soap-opera scriptwriter would laugh it out of a story meeting.
Film Threat Kevin Carr
The characters’ actions here are goofy, immature, unsettling and at times downright silly.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 35 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Pat C. gave it a6:
Indirect structure must be endured until the pieces start to fall into place. Fluctuates between sublime and shallow personality traits without implying there is any distinction between the two. But overall a tasteful and admittedly powerful situation romance.
Paul C gave it a10:
This is a rich,complicated story that is told masterfully. The style of narrative is like Memento, told in non-chronlogical order. Yes, this movie makes you think. You have to use your brain to figure out what is going on. I am so sick of people bashing films that require a conscious effort to understand. Overall, a wonderful film with excellent direction and good acting, but more importantly a fantastic script.
Bernadette gave it a3:
Boring, wondering when it would be over. Could have read a good book instead.
Larry S. gave it a5:
[***SPOILER***] Make sure you have at least cup of strong coffee before you watch this one. It’s one of these postmodern dramas that unfolds a story from the perspective of various characters, and not in chronological order. You have to get near the end before you understand what the hell is going on, because one major character is lying and double dealing, and until you get that point, it’s very hard to follow what’s happening. Then, you realize that the woman who is playing an actress and another one portraying a nurse are really the same woman, living a double life. Once you get that, it’s hard not to relax, because the writers have made you work so hard to stay awake and in tune with their complex way of telling a story up to that point. The acting is shallow, particularly by the lead actor, pretty boy Josh Hartnett who doesn’t seem to know what to do with his face to convey emotions, particularly when the script calls for him to be silent very often. It’s worth watching just to make it through to the end, which is sugary sweet and twisted. If you like your plots in chronological order and your narratives told by an impartial lens instead of the perspective of each character, you will rate this one lower. But if you like jumping from the perspective of one character to another, with handheld cameras to show which character’s eyes.
M C gave it a10:
Pros: interesting story, beyond excellent acting, excellent direction and setting cons: to complex for the average american joe (thats why it got such low rating) overview: If you are a scum sucking American with a mind as intruiging as a peanut, then don't watch this film. If youre mind is as intruiging as a peanut in an antique bowl from the age of the ancient greeks, then watch it.
Rod C. gave it a9:
Crisp, clean and intriguing. Excellent editing work, average acting, excellent script.
clay o. gave it a0:
Along with 'The Village,' the most excruciatingly annoying film of the last two years.
