Wicker Park is a 2004 American romantic thriller drama film directed by Paul McGuigan and starring Josh Hartnett, Rose Byrne, Diane Kruger and Matthew Lillard.

Matt Simon, a young advertising executive, returns to Chicago with his fiancée Rebecca, after spending the last two years in New York.

A key card which the woman leaves at the restaurant leads Matt to a hotel, where he finds Lisa's silver compact and an article marked in a newspaper.

He leaves a note for Lisa at the restaurant bar, borrows Luke's car, and trails the man from the newspaper article to an apartment.

Calling L'Appartement "among the most absorbing and ingeniously constructed thrillers in years," Variety noted that the film "was tapped for a Hollywood redo almost immediately," but then went into development hell with multiple directors (Joel Schumacher, Steven Spielberg, Joan Chen and Danny Cannon) and stars (Brendan Fraser, Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Paul Walker) attached at different times.

The site's critics consensus reads: "Implausible coincidences and an overly convoluted structure make the movie hard to follow or believe.

"[8] The Arizona Republic calls it "a film with more unbelievable coincidences than a Henry Fielding novel, more plot holes than a Swiss cheese and populated with the stock characters of that Hollywood world, that cinematic parallel universe.

"[9] McGuigan's direction is also criticised, with the Denver Rocky Mountain News saying he "seems to have invested more in the youth and glamour of his cast than in a plausible and exacting script", whereas The New York Times says "Directorial touches can't do much to salvage a project as poorly conceived as this one.

"[10] Though calling the film inferior to L'Appartement, Scott Foundas wrote in Variety that both Wicker Park's directing and screenplay were faithful to the French original, praising the way the film's second half "jumps back and forth in time and shifts between various characters' points-of-view, until finally the disparate pieces of the pic's fragmented puzzle come together.

"[2] He added, "And while cynical viewers will no doubt suggest that [the] pic's entire mystery could be remedied with a single e-mail or cell phone call, the same might be said for Vertigo, and there's something refreshing and timeless about the way Wicker Park allows its characters to rely on their own wits rather than those increasingly common technological aids.

In a mixed review, The Boston Globe says, "The preview audience I saw it with hooted in disbelief at the outrageous bits, then happily dug in to see what would happen next.

"[12] In a favorable review, Roger Ebert says Wicker Park "works because the actors invest their scenes with what is, under the circumstances, astonishing emotional realism.