Wicker Park-2002 * * * *

Passion never dies.

Wicker Park is a strange film. I tried to watch it a while back and was totally bored and unimpressed with the whole idea. I tried to watch it again recently and was totally bowled over and gripped by the acting, the plot and the conclusion. Josh Hartnett to my mind has never been a good actor, he's been a hearthrob and maybe a bit of a sex-obsessed joke in some of his films but never strong enough for the audience to go 'wow'. However in this film I took his portrayal of a man who's lost the only woman he ever loved to be a pretty good example of quality acting. This film is all about coincidences, memories, passion and mistaken identity but it still manages to serve up some eerie scenes where Hartnett believes he is looking right at his lost love, only for her to disappear suddenly. The movie takes a much needed darker turn about half way through and we find out exactly what we are so anxious to know in relation to what happened to his girlfriend. Rose Byrne is really quite nauseating as Hartnett's best friend's girlfriend who appears to know a lot more about the situation than she is letting on. (His best friend incidentally is that dorky bloke who is in 'She's all that' and 'Without a Paddle' but whose name I can never remember.)

I'm not sure how to class this film- suspense, thriller, dark comedy... Whatever it is it still deserves a watch, and maybe another one soon after to tie up any loose ends that you may have missed the first time around.