Wicker Park
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: September 3, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
12
Negative:
15
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen 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
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam 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
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger 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
75
Baltimore SunChris 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
75
ReelViewsJames 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
70
Washington PostStephen 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
63
Boston GlobeTy 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
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
There are some striking visuals and Hartnett is a magnetic presence. Read full review
60
EmpireAlan Morrison
Aside from Rose Byrne's complex performance, there's nothing here that improves upon the original. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael 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
50
VarietyScott 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
50
Portland OregonianM. 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
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
If plot were oats, Wicker Park would choke a horse. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Instead of building toward a grand romantic climax, it just gets sillier before exploding into a torrent of unintended laughs. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyChuck 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
40
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
You have to applaud for sheer folly. This doesn't just reprise another film. It reprises a French film. Read full review
40
Village VoiceJessica Winter
Dippy romantic thriller. Read full review
40
The New York TimesDave 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
40
Austin ChronicleMarc 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
38
New York Daily NewsJami 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
38
New York PostMegan Lehmann
One of the silliest, most sieve-like screenplays of the year. Read full review
38
PremiereAaron 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
30
Dallas ObserverLuke 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
30
The Hollywood ReporterMichael 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
30
Los Angeles TimesKevin 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
30
SalonStephanie 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
30
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
A convoluted exercise in shifting perspectives and fractured storytelling. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
The whole incoherent mess is sort of like a downbeat Gap ad, only longer and a lot more boring. Read full review
25
Philadelphia InquirerDavid Hiltbrand
A dementedly artificial and artsy film, a headache-inducing jumble of fractured narrative, flashbacks within flashbacks, and shifting perspectives. Read full review
25
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Emotionally stultifying and brain-dead. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleCarla 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
20
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
A limp and exceedingly uninvolving melodrama. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufman
Built on such a goofy premise that your average soap-opera scriptwriter would laugh it out of a story meeting.
10
Film ThreatKevin Carr
The characters’ actions here are goofy, immature, unsettling and at times downright silly. Read full review
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