The Lake House (2006) November 14, 2006
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: Alejandro Agresti
It’s been 12 years since Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock worked together, and they’ve both had their career ups and downs during that time. But Speed 3 this is not, as the pair play separated lovers in a romantic fantasy based on the Korean movie Il Mare.
And if ‘separated lovers’ sounds like a slightly well-tread story premise, then you might be interested to learn that the separation is not one of distance, but of time. Two years in fact, as Alex (Reeves) is living at the titular lake house during 2004, while Kate (Bullock) is visiting in 2006. They discover that they can communicate by putting letters in the mailbox, and strike up an unlikely romantic connection. But being unable to meet face to face, combined with their personal problems (she’s a hospital doctor, he’s a struggling architect with an estranged father), means their relationship soon becomes strained.
It’s a risky premise, mainly because the plot involves some aspects of time travel, which can get very messy when it comes to consistency and believability. Some movies handle it well, and manage to explain away the potential complications of time travel plotting (the ‘alternate 1985’ explanation in Back To the Future Part II is a good example). This movie however, seems to decide early on to just throw caution to the wind, and goes all out to ignore the problems inherent with communicating through time. This naturally throws up all kinds of plot holes – and they just keep coming, right up to the credits.
There were some things I liked though. The letter ‘conversations’ are handled well, and once the audience has got the idea of how they communicate, we get more naturalistic voice-over conversations. This stops the whole movie being two people writing and delivering letters I suppose, although it does mean that they sometime talk in a manner that wouldn’t occur by letter – with one character stopping mid-story, and the other saying “please carry on”. Also, despite my earlier rant about the ignorance shown towards time-travel, there are a couple of nice plot turns. Even if they do seem slightly redundant when Kate never bothers to look Alex up in 2006.
I’m not entirely sure this movie achieves what it sets out to do. The performances are fine, and the direction is perfectly competent. Even the script, while slightly too cute at times, is acceptable for a romantic tale such as this. I guess in the end the film just isn’t that good, and the endless plot holes make it a very unsatisfying experience. They may have both grown up now, but I’d rather see Keanu and Sandra catch the bus any day.
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