2K Replay: WICKER PARK

 by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Grand Prix des Ameriques” (Paul McGuigan) at the Montreal World Film Festival. He lost to Eran Riklis for Syrian Bride.

• Best Scene/Moment (tie): Any scene at the Lady Dragon Shoes store. This is inexplicably where Matthew Lillard works and the setting for numerous scenes. If there were any justice in the world this would have been spun-off into an hour-long drama series on the WB in the mid-2000s. Also, the final scene at the airport where in the span of less than 10 minutes we see a broken engagement, a mea culpa confessional, and a swoony romantic reconciliation.

• Best Song: This one’s tough because Wicker Park has a solid soundtrack and score. I’ll go with “The Scientist” by Coldplay as my pick but give honorable mentions to “Maybe Tomorrow” by Stereophonics and “Good to Me” by The White Stripes.

• Best Merch: A “Wicker Park Movie Promo Long Sleeve Shirt (XL) (Never Worn)” for $15.00. Don’t bother trying to look this up on eBay because I’ve already bought it. Now if I buy a stocking cap and wear it inside, I’ll look just like ‘04 Hartnett!

• Director Grade: Wicker Park was directed by Paul McGuigan.
Great Movies: Wicker Park
Good Movies: Lucky Number Slevin
OK Movies: N/A
Bad Movies: N/A Unseen By Me: The Acid House, Gangster No. 1, The Reckoning, Push, Victor Frankenstein, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
Overall Grade: B+

• Double It with This 2004 Movie: The Notebook

• Year 2004 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Alfie, Closer, Troy

• Color of Night or Wicker Park? Wicker Park.

• Mall Movie? It’s debatable. If your mall has an Express for Men, then yes. Otherwise no, and it would play at the fancy theater in town.

• Only in 2004: An American Airlines customer service desk that’s weirdly in a downtown Chicago office building and not in an airport. That couldn’t have existed, right?

• Scene Stealer: Matthew Lillard.

• I Miss (tie): Being young and thinking my romantic life would soon resemble Josh Hartnett’s misadventures in Wicker Park and romantic dramas released by MGM. They almost always lost money and/or starred Richard Gere. Wicker Park is the most Richard Gere movie to not star Richard Gere that I’ve ever seen.

• I Don’t Miss: Landline phones and answering machines.

• 2004 Crush: Jessica Paré.

• 2024 Crush (tie): Rose Byrne and Jessica Paré.

• What I Thought in 2004: I was so in on this movie’s bullshit. 2004 was back in my heyday of watching a lot of WB series and Wicker Park felt like one of those soapy melodramas.

• What I Think in 2024: I still love it. I dig the movie’s romantic pentagon of Josh Hartnett-Diane Kruger-Rose Byrne-Matthew Lillard-Jessica Paré and now I get a fun sense of nostalgia from revisiting this movie. It still feels like an overly earnest television show as much as a movie, but the locations look great, everyone’s beautiful, the music rules, and it’s pretty well edited.