Directed by Alejandro Agresti
Starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock
3.5 stars
First, a caveat: ‘The Lake House’ might very well be one of the most ridiculous movies you will ever see. Going into it, be prepared for unresolved paradoxes, saccharine romance, complete wtf-confusion, and a lot of time travel. Yes, time travel. No joke. But if you can look past these things, what you’ll find is an undeniably touching story of love and fate and everything you may have forgotten existed. ‘The Lake House’ sets out to do a few simple things – to make you believe in love, and to make you, for a shade under two hours, suspend your disbelief. And it works.
Another warning: this reviewer spent the better part of her pubescence pining over Keanu Reeves. Ten years later, Reeves hasn’t changed that much (never got those acting lessons, eh?), and apparently, neither has this reviewer. Last paired in ‘Speed,’ Reeves and Sandra Bullock have an unexpectedly magnetic chemistry that was hard to miss years ago, and is equally as resonant now. Half the movie you might be asking yourself what the hell is going on, but the other half, you might just find yourself sitting back, starry-eyed and heart-warmed, genuinely wishing these two time-crossed lovers could make it work.
The story begins with Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock), a weary and heartbroken doctor, leaving her beloved lake house to head to Chicago. Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves), a rugged architect, is quick to take her place in the charming house, which was built decades ago by his famous architect father. Simple enough – until Alex finds a letter Kate left for the new tenant indicating where to deliver any mail that finds its way to her old residence. A correspondence begins, and within the first few rounds, it becomes clear something fantastical is going on. You see, Alex lives in 2004, and Kate lives in 2006, exactly two years later. They can write each other love letters, even have conversations and go on walks together, laugh and argue, but all as ghosts to one another. For the majority of the movie, the audience is left wondering how on earth these two characters are going to cross paths. Over the course of the correspondence, though, Alex manages to meet the Kate of two year prior, but fails to come up with a non-loony way to indicate to her that he, uh, has been writing love letters to her … in her future. The two lovers meet and part, all in Alex’s 2004 reality with dramatic irony in full effect. All the while, Kate version 2006, as well as the audience, is in a suspenseful romance coma, pondering the ludicrousness of the story and what will become of it.
The Lake House isn’t for everyone – some might find its persistently baffling time travel concept not only hard to follow but nauseating and annoying. But director Alejandro Agresti has accomplished a feat few romance movies do these days – he has given the audience a bit of fantasy to get lost in, and for the most part, they do. What could have been just a sappy sequel to ‘Serendipity’ (or an uninspired rip-off of its source material, the Korean sap-a-thon ‘Il Mare’) is actually a compelling, albeit completely unbelievable, classic love story. Beyond its logical absurdity, this dreamy romance does a remarkably good job of stoking that fire of hope for true love, unbound by place or even time.
