Elegant, Lovely "Wicker Park" a Surprising Thriller

What nobody knows is that Mat is haunted by the memory of the girl that got away. Once upon a time he gave his love to the beautiful dancer Lisa (Diane Kruger), but when she disappeared to Europe without even so much as a goodbye the young man’s word was shattered. Even now more than two years later he is haunted by this ethereal beauty whom stole his heart. When he glimpses briefly a woman in a local restaurant that looks amazingly like Lisa, Mat immediately becomes obsessed with finding her and discovering the truth as to why she disappeared.

Forgoing the trip to China, lying to his fiancé and his superiors, he enlists the help of childhood friend Luke (Matthew Lillard) to help find Lisa. While his pal is at first incredulous to Mat’s obsessions, slowly he, too, becomes enmeshed within the search putting his own relationship with the mysterious Alex (Rose Byrne) on the line. But as Matthew’s obsessive journey deepens into sexual confusion, will the answer to the riddle free the tortured executive from his past or destroy his life forever?

Thus is the world of “Wicker Park,” Scottish director Paul McGuigan’s intriguing and ultimately satisfying remake of Gillles Mimouni’s French classic “L’Appartement.” Flipping time, space and the nature of love on its head, McGuigan successfully juggles the film’s complex narrative, crafting an elegant romantic thriller that easily rates as one of the year’s biggest surprises.

Let’s be honest: I did not go into “Wicker Park” with anything resembling high expectations. Films released over Labor Day weekend are typically a mixed bag most being pictures studios would rather see buried and not released. Case in point, last year’s anemic Satanic thriller “The Order” starring Heath Ledger. Easily one of the year’s worst features, 20^th Century Fox used the usually tepid holiday to quietly release the misfire before quietly shuttling it off to DVD, and they’re not the first studio to do so.

In this case, there was no reason to suspect MGM wasn’t going the same route. “Wicker Park” has bounced all over the studio’s docket while their advertising for the feature has been lackluster at best. Besides, how many remakes of French classics have been worth their grain in salt, let alone ten dollars at the local multiplex? Few, and very far between and there was no reason to believe things would be different here.

Yet, they are, and I for one can’t help but be more than a bit surprised. While McGuigan has shown talent and flair behind the camera with his past two flicks “Gangster No. 1” and “The Reckoning,” I never would have thought him capable of delivering such a nuanced and tightly wound dramatically thrilling love story. McGuigan deftly flips between past and present, flipping the switch between now and then with such passionately delicate ease I found myself spellbound almost from the very first frame. His use of mirrors is particularly good, the director’s and cinematographer Peter Sova’s use of overlapping imagery and reflection is astounding. “Wicker Park” is an otherworldly dream, and as it progressed I couldn’t help but inch more and more up in my seat to take it all in.

Brandon Boyce (I’m sure with much input from originator – and producer – Mimouni) has adapted this Americanized update exquisitely, unafraid to leave in the thunderingly esoteric eroticism inherent in the original. This is a movie, not so much about love, but about obsession – sexual obsession – and as such takes its characters into corners it is easy to find uncomfortable. Matt and Alex do things we’d like to think as rational human beings we would never do ourselves. Yet, in the heat of passion, in the midst of despair, in the stench of longing, who knows what depths we might fall? Are their choices so much more radical than ours? I’d like to think they are, but the possibility that they wouldn’t be lingers in the air and it is that mystery of longing indecision sparking the momentum in “Wicker Park.”

As good as things are, there is still too much in the way of literal meaning and motivation driving the remake. Mimouni created a transcendental dreamscape with his picture, and McGuigan does not envelop that same type of feel. As much as “Wicker Park” kept me on my toes, it never took me off my feet, and just as events should soar to a rarified conclusion of love and longing, the film suddenly drips into soap opera theatrics almost counteracting the beauteous netherworld so skillfully developed early on.

Escaping teen movie leading man purgatory, Hartnett actually anchors the film amazingly well. No stranger to adult roles, both “Black Hawk Down” and “Hollywood Homicide” showed his skill in that arena, this is still his first truly adult performance as a headlining star. While his work isn’t a great piece of acting, it is still a very skillful one, and the actor builds his character throughout the picture with striking forcefulness and inviting apprehension. Even as Mat does some things that caused me to slap my forehead, I still found myself rooting for him, Hartnett never losing either my interest or my concern in support of his cause.

Lillard is a welcome costar, easily gaining my forgiveness for making me sit through “Without a Paddle.” The look on his face towards the end of the picture is heartbreaking, especially when you consider how light and bouncy, so full of joy and lust for life, his character is throughout the picture. Besides, I’m a sucker for shoes, and Luke’s shoe store has the best collection I’ve seen since “Sex & the City” went off the air and that fact alone earns the performance a smile.

Of the female leads (both fresh off wildly divergent turns in “Troy”) only Byrne impresses. Her Alex is a wildly shrewd chameleon, playing both sides of the coin so close to the vest that she has to invent a third one just to keep up with her own lies. It is a ferociously unsympathetic turn. And yet, just as I thought I could strangle her, Byrne managed to bring me to tears, her character’s plight far more complex and affecting then I’d presupposed. As for Kruger, she’s every bit as beautiful as she was in “Troy” but unfortunately just as lifeless. The chemistry between her and Hartnett is nonexistent, making it hard to fully understand or relate to Luke’s headstrong fascinations.