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 Wicker Park Production NotesPassion Never Dies.
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. Two years after her disappearance, he catches a fleeting glimpse of her in a local bar and begins a twisting search to find her and discover what really happened.
From the moment Matthew sees Lisa, nothing else matters. She walks past the window of the shop where he works in the Wicker Park section of Chicago, and he’s immediately captivated; he follows her, they meet, and soon they fall deeply in love. Everything about their relationship seems perfect -- until the day she disappears without a trace.
Two years later, Matt has built a new life for himself, but he’s still haunted by her memory and the nagging torment of unanswered questions. Then he catches a quick glimpse of someone he thinks must be her in a bar...but is it?
Thus begins a twisting, obsessive search for the woman who captured his heart years ago -- and for someone who’s playing with his mind right now. Intricately moving back and forth in time and revealing the story from varying perspectives, Matthew’s search for the truth will lead him deeper into the mystery, with each discovery more deceiving than the next. Obsession can go both ways, and Matthew discovers it’s possible to love someone too much...
Full Synopsis
In the Wicker Park area of Chicago where he lives, from the window of the camera store where he works, Matthew sees a girl cross the street and is inexplicably drawn to her. When he sees her looking at a pair of shoes in the window of a store owned by his best friend, Luke, he finds a way to meet her and a romance begins that changes his entire life.
Matthew and the girl, Lisa, fall in love and their lives become intertwined. Then one day Matthew comes home to find Lisa gone. Vanished. The only clue he has comes from the director of her dance company, who informs Matthew that she has accepted an offer from a theatrical company in London. Did he mean so little to her that she’d leave without a word? Was any of part of their love real? The whirlwind of their romance, so recently rapturous, now sends his mind spinning into a dark vortex.
Two years pass as Matthew tries to reconstruct his life. Living again in his hometown of Chicago after a two-year stint in New York, he runs into his old friend Luke and tells him he’s been making a name for himself in the advertising business and is engaged to his boss’ younger sister. He also getting ready for an important trip to China to conclude a business deal.
Luke then tells Matthew of his love troubles with a girl he’s met and – uncharacteristically – hasn’t slept with, but remains infatuated with. The cloud of doubt and mystery of Lisa’s disappearance still hangs above Matthew, but he has made peace with his new life and seems ready to move on. Luke asks Matthew to call him when he’s back from China.
Then, in a restaurant waiting to meet his fiancée, Matthew thinks he sees Lisa. He tries to follow but loses her. Was it her? Faced with a dilemma, he has a decision to make: should he catch his plane, or should he abandon his business plans and stay to figure out what happened?
He decides to stay in Chicago and pursue his passion rather than fulfill his obligations in China, perhaps even giving up the new life he has pledged his fiancée. He knows it’s a decision that may change him forever. But Matthew is a man obsessed; he has to find Lisa. Only then might he be able to let her go.
Also, during his search, Matthew gets caught up in an affair with a beautiful stranger named Alex, and as he gets to know her better, something seems not quite right. Unbeknownst to Matthew, Alex is the girl Luke has been dating – and her motives are less than pure. Alex also has an obsession. His name is Matthew…
About the Production
Set in Chicago, Wicker Park is a psychological drama about a young advertising executive (Hartnett) and his obsessive search for a lost love. While trying to track down a woman (Kruger) who mysteriously walked out of his life two years earlier, he’s also caught up in an affair with a mysterious young woman (Byrne) who’s dating his best friend (Lillard).
So much for uncomplicated relationships. With its circuitous, surprise-filled script and sexy undercurrents, Wicker Park was a project that attracted top talent from the very beginning. In setting up the film, a remake of the acclaimed French movie L’Appartement by Gilles Mimouni, the producers needed a director who could handle a challenging screenplay with a stylish, clear, and exciting command of the medium. They found their auteur in Scotsman Paul McGuigan.
“For Wicker Park, we put an exciting cast in the hands of a very creative and talented director,” says producer Tom Rosenberg. “While we’ve retained many key elements from the first film, Paul brings a totally original vision to this one. Working from a fresh script, his unique style really energizes a plot charged with roller coaster twists and surprises.”
McGuigan says he was immediately attracted to the project when he read it. “I was very captivated by the script,” he says. “I had to go back and read it again to make sure I was picking it up. It’s a love story, but it’s told in a very non-linear way.”
With McGuigan at the helm, the filmmakers then concentrated on assembling a young, talented cast who could handle the film’s multi-layered characters and twisted situations. To play the film’s lead, the bewildered, bewitched Matthew, the filmmakers settled on Josh Hartnett. In addition to his status as one of Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs, Hartnett has proved his acting mettle with earnest, subtle performances in films such as The Virgin Suicides and Black Hawk Down. Due to his starpower, Hartnett’s involvement also helped Wicker Park hit the fast track: after reading the script, he eagerly agreed to join the cast and the production truly started to pick up speed.
“In his previous films, Josh has demonstrated extraordinary charisma on screen,” says producer Gary Lucchesi. “In Wicker Park, he gets to play the part of a more dramatic, romantic hero than he’s done before, and he truly rises to the challenge. You can see Josh is really growing up in this film; his work continues to get more and more exciting.”
In discussing what attracted him to Wicker Park, Hartnett attributes a great deal of his interest to the opportunity to work with director Paul McGuigan. “I really liked Paul’s film Gangster No. 1 and I really wanted to work with him,” says Hartnett. He also liked the recurring motifs and themes in the film. “What appealed to me was its theme of passion,” he continues, “and the belief that love conquers all – I think that’s the sweetness about the film. It’s a story about the possibility of love finding a way in the most improbable circumstances.”
Hartnett found his character’s core dilemma intriguing and fun to explore. “There’s an ambiguity in the story that I like a lot,” he says. “I think it’s about a time in your life when you’re open to things and – bang – you find this girl and you fall in love with her. You think it’s a beautiful relationship and then, one day, she just disappears. You’re devastated. My character, Matthew, decides to just float and see where life takes him. Then, one day, he sees the love of his life again – or thinks he sees her – and he suddenly has a lot of choices to make.”
Another aspect of the script Hartnett found fascinating was its method of moving around in time to reveal the true story. “That’s what’s great about the movie,” says Hartnett, “the structure of it. It’s a semi-simple idea: boy finds girl, boy loses girl, boy thinks he finds her again and goes after her. But the way it’s told is really nice. When you really look at it, it’s a movie about being in love, and the kind of trouble you put yourself through to find that love again.”
Hartnett has nothing but praise for his co-stars; he enjoyed working with the cast and felttheir styles and efforts compliment one another very well. When asked about Diane Kruger, Hartnett says, “She’s great. She’s wonderful, a sweetheart. You know, she, Rose Byrne, Matthew Lillard, they’re all really great. We have a superb core cast. Both Diane and Rose are two of the best young actresses around. It’s been a joy to work with them.”
Hartnett’s experience with McGuigan also ended up being what he’d hoped for. “Paul’s a really good guy,” he says. “He’s very smart, but he’ll tell you he’s not good at anything because he’s Scottish, and I like that about him. He’s got a really good visual sense, too. And I like a director for whom it’s not ‘fill in the blank’ when they get to work. It’s ‘What are we going to do?’ It’s inventive the whole time.”
McGuigan certainly liked working with Hartnett as well – the two will soon be together again for the film Lucky Number Slevin. “I was very interested in Josh because I’d seen his work,” says McGuigan. “We all know Josh is good looking, but more importantly he’s a very good actor and very serious about his craft. We talked a lot about the things that interested him, and he wanted to know everything about the film, all the way down to the music we used. He can challenge you and ask you the right questions rather than ask the questions actors think they’re supposed to ask. He’s a pleasure.”
For Matthew Lillard, fresh off his success in the big-budget Scooby-Doo comedy capers and horror films like Scream and Thirteen Ghosts, Wicker Park was a chance to take on a different kind of role. The coup of landing the part of Hartnett’s best friend, Luke, was a matter of good timing and the actor’s charm and talent.
“Coming off Scooby-Doo, Wicker Park was a great opportunity for me to flex another kind of acting muscle,” says Lillard. “The character of Shaggy is so big and high energy that the chance to work on a romantic thriller was incredibly appealing.” Lillard also found that Wicker Park provided the actor’s with another chance to do what’s appealing about acting in the first place. “It’s the great thing about our jobs,” he continues. “We get to go from one extreme to the other. We get to play in different worlds and use our imaginations in different ways.”
Lillard was also attracted to the fact that the film had such unique characters. “The love triangles throughout the entire film are so interesting,” he says. “It deals with obsession. It deals with passion. Also, for me to have a scene with a woman that’s not played for laughs is always a good thing. I’m usually seen with CGI dogs or people that have a knife. Luke is a straightforward, normal human being, and I like that.”
Lillard feels Luke is the film’s moral center. “Luke is the innocent in the film,” he says. “He’s passionately, madly in love with Alex and is best friends with Matthew, and he’s on the outside of all these obscure love triangles. Mostly I think Luke is an honest character, and a sort of semi-tragic character in the end.”
Director McGuigan feels Lillard really helped balance the film. “Matthew is so funny, but he’s also a great actor,” says McGuigan. “He brought a really nice, light touch to his part.
There are only four main characters in this movie, so it’s a very intimate film. You have a bit of relief from the drama with Matthew, and he walks a fine line in balancing out the film’s tone when he’s onscreen.”
Lillard enjoyed director McGuigan’s style and found his set a fruitful environment for trying new things. “The great thing about working with McGuigan,” he says, “is that he does long takes. You get into a rhythm and do long, ten-minute takes; that’s a luxury many actors aren’t afforded these days in film. Paul is one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with. He’s so great in terms of giving direction and being specific with his actors. I always work with the imagery that a film is like a ship, and you want a captain of the ship that will lead you into the storm and whom you’ll follow no matter what. Paul is that kind of director. He’s so gifted.”
Overall, Lillard feels the film will appeal to audiences who enjoy watching other people go through situations they themselves wouldn’t want to experience. “The tension in this movie comes from Josh’s character sacrificing everything in his life,” he says. “His livelihood, his fiancée – he sacrifices all that and walks off this precipice because he makes a choice to find his one true love again. The idea of a man sacrificing everything to find his one true love – it’s so brave, and people are drawn to that. And I think that’s kind of a secret fantasy of everyone’s, to have someone in their lives willing to do that for them.”
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Diane Kruger star as Lisa and Josh Hartnett as Matthew in Wicker Park.
