In terms of plot setting, L'appartement, as the original work, echoes more coherently before and after. For example, at the beginning of the film, Max had difficulty choosing between three rings, echoing his difficult attitude towards three women. The description of the fear of the person who followed Lisa is also more detailed in the original work, and the final fire is more in line with the setting of the characters.
And Wicker Park is a typical Hollywood mindset. Happy ending, true love never ends. So the scene of picking the ring has no meaning, and the stalker suddenly disappears in the middle of the film. But this kind of treatment for changing the ending direction feels a bit abrupt. Anyway, as one of the characters driving the storyline, the screenwriter should consider explaining where he is going. There is also the part where Alex came on stage, Wicker Park adapted it to a great success, and then the hysterical crying in the locker room made people feel puzzling, but it was not as natural as the original.
The other is the difference between the two cultures. L'appartement has a strong French flavor, Alice's heart-piercing love, which instantly reminded me of Jeux d'enfants's maddened love, so it has more resonance. As for Alex in Wicker Park, there is always a feeling that the heat has not yet arrived, and the emotional transition is very abrupt. It's not so much that the actor's skill is not enough, it's better that the plot is set up improperly. For example, the last part of confession was obviously done deliberately by the director and the screenwriter, and there was little foreshadowing before, which made the whole film have a strong didactic atmosphere, but it is not as good as the original dream-like nihilistic feeling.
The last thing I want to talk about is a detail in Wicker Park that pays homage to the original work. The restaurant where the male protagonist met Lisa again is called Bellucci~ If you watch it in the order of the original work, you may be surprised~
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