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Not so Wicked
Okay, I lied. There's not going to be two columns each week. I'm going for three issues per week!!! Today, we have a test screening review of Wicker Park. It's another one of those awful movies (Pluto Nash, Battlefield Earth etc...) that shot in my hometown of Montreal. I'll finish the week with my first exclusive script review in six months: my favorite screenplay of the moment, Something's Gotta Give.
Wicker Park Review
“Just caught a test screening of the upcoming 'Hitchcockian' thriller Wicker Park (or Obsessed as they also have been calling it) starring Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor, 40 Days & 40 Nights) and Matthew Lillard (Scooby Doo, Scream). Let me just say plainly that this movie sucked. It’s confusing, annoying, the script is ridiculous and the characters are as boring as can be.
Josh Harnett plays Matthew, and it’s obvious from very early on that Matthew is unhappy, and longs for more, and it’s no wonder why, being that we have no clue what he in fact does for his 'clients'. We do however see how he keeps his clients, by kissing his smart and beautiful fiancé Rebecca, in front of rich Chinese businessmen (creepy Asians and their violent pornography). Matthew chokes and hustles off to the bathroom only to hear the voice of the woman he’s been longing for, Lisa, a mysterious woman of Matthew’s past. Cue the beginning of MANY flashbacks to come that slowly explain what the hell is going on, then very quickly overstay their welcome by either confusing us with the timeline, or repeating 'reveals' that we’ve already seen explained.
SPOILER ALERT
Turns out the woman he’s been following is not the same Lisa that Matthew has been stalking/obsessing over in the many flashbacks we’ve been shown. Yet this 'Other Lisa' wears the same coat, uses the same perfume, carries the same make-up compact that the real Lisa’s grandmother gave to her, carries the same keys, drives the same car and lives in the same apartment. So obviously Matthew assumes that the real Lisa was just a mirage and sleeps with the other Lisa. Through flashbacks we discover that the real Lisa dropped off the face of the earth after a loving Matthew asked her to move in with him. No wonder he’s obsessed!
Later we discover that Matthew’s friend Luke (Matthew Lillard who happens to work in a Japanese shoe store, like Al Bundy, only trendier!) is dating an actress in make-up. But when the make-up wipes off, it’s the other Lisa!!! The same fake Lisa that Matthew slept with! We discover her name is Alex, and Alex happened to be the real Lisa’s neighbor. Turns out that Alex has been obsessing over Matthew!!! Don’t worry there are more twists to slowly reveal in the last half hour (even though most intelligent viewers would piece it all together by now).
We find out that Lisa was actually in love with Matthew and wanted to move in together, but she gave Alex, Matthew’s apartment key and a letter of explanation the same day she had to fly off to France to dance in some big show (because finding Matthew before she left for three months to France would be too emotional I suppose). We then see that Alex had been going into Matthew’s apartment and deleting Lisa’s phone messages to Matthew, and finally hear that Alex told Lisa that she caught Matthew cheating on her (which caused many 13 year olds in the audience to shout 'That Ho-Cake! She’s lying!!').
Now you have to understand, by the time the story was completely put together, I just didn’t care. And by the end I was just plain annoyed. The love of your life asks you to move in with him, so you run off to France without kissing him goodbye? Then you live in France for three months calling him 10 times and miraculously only reach his answering machine? You wouldn’t keep calling until you reached him personally? Neither Matthew nor Lisa had other ways of contact information? No e-mail? No cell phone? No family to call? No mutual friends? No address to write more letters to? Then after three months of no contact, you’d just assume it’s done with? I’ll tell you; if I found out that the love of my life had cheated on me the same day I left for France, before he read the letter I handed to my friend to give to him explaining that I was going to be in France for three months, I’d fly back the next day to slap him in the face.
END OF SPOILERS
This entire movie relied on a twist that doesn’t hold one ounce of believability. To make an audience wait so long to understand what’s going on and then to reveal what they revealed is just plain rude. This movie was absurd. It wasn’t the actors fault, they all did admirable jobs given the stupid script. Whoever came up with the editing style of this film surely needs to be fired. The characters were bland, I couldn’t care about any of them, especially Lisa. They tell us so little, and distract us with unimportant subplots involving her, it just ended up making me dislike her. Steer clear of this annoying Stinker Park or whatever they end up calling it.”
(Review sent it by 'Bonehead'.)
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That's all folks...
Jean-François Allaire (aka DeadPool)
Questions, comments, praise etc. Email me at deadpool@tnmc.org
Jean-François Allaire is TNMC's first columnist. At only 24 years old he has become a respected entertainment journalist, with his columns appearing in Corona's Coming Attractions and Scr(i)pt magazine. He also writes a monthly column in Screenwriters Monthly entitled 'The Last Word.' Hailing from Montreal this young writer is determined to dig up all the details on the movies before they hit your local theater. If you're part of a movie production then you really need to be talking to him.
