Tweet

EMAIL

PRINT

Comments (0)

 1 of 3

The Lake House Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG (for some language and a disturbing image) Genre: Romance Theater release: June 16, 2006 by Warner Brothers Directed by: Alejandro Agresti Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes Cast: Keanu Reeves (Alex Wyler), Sandra Bullock (Kate Forster), Christopher Plummer (Simon Wyler), Shohreh Aghdashloo (Anna), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Henry Wyler), Dylan Walsh (Morgan), Willeke van Ammelrooy (Kate's mother), Lynn Collins (Mona) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Looks like this is Get To Know Chicago Month at the movies. Two weeks ago in The Break-Up, Vince Vaughn took a busload of tourists on a sightseeing trip through the Windy City, and now, in The Lake House, Keanu Reeves plays an architect who shows some of the city's more unique buildings to Sandra Bullock. But in the latter film, there's just one catch: they do not visit these buildings at the same time. It's pretty much impossible for them to do so, because Reeves lives in 2004 and Bullock lives in 2006, and they have been exchanging letters back and forth in time through a sort of magical mailbox. So he leaves her a map and tells her which places to visit, and when she arrives at one, she finds a two-year-old message waiting for her in the graffiti. It's a good thing nobody cleaned that wall or posted any bills there!

Sandra Bullock stars as Dr. Kate Forster, who's reluctant to give up her rental home on the lake

The time-bending premise might remind viewers of Frequency (2000), in which a father and son communicated across the decades through a ham radio. But The Lake House is actually a remake of a Korean film which came out at about the same time, known in these parts as Il Mare. The new version was written by David Auburn, the award-winning Proof playwright, and directed by Alejandro Agresti, an Argentinian making his first English-language feature. And while it has some interesting ideas and some nice mood moments, it never quite comes together.

This is partly because the filmmakers don't seem to know quite how to flesh these characters out. Bullock plays Kate Forster, a doctor who has recently finished her residency and is too busy with work, work, work to even think about having a social life, let alone a love life. She gets along well enough with her colleague, Anna (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and she has a mother (Willeke van Ammelrooy), too, but their conversations aren't very revealing; even with these two women in her life, the filmmakers have to resort to making Kate a fan of Jane Austen books and Cary Grant movies to give her a sense of dimension. As Alex Wyler, the eldest son in a dysfunctional family of architects, Reeves has a little more to do, but he looks and acts so different from his dad (Christopher Plummer) and younger brother (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) that they never seem like more than a trio of actors.

Keanu Reeves as Alex Wyler, who finds a very different lake house waiting for him

And then there is all that time-bending stuff itself. If the story had been told from only one character's perspective, it would have been trippy enough. But the story is told from both points of view simultaneously—and the opening scenes even trick you into thinking that Alex's part of the story takes place after Kate's, instead of vice versa—so you could spend most of the film just trying to sort things out (who knows how much about who and when, and so on). Don't get me wrong, I like time-travel stories and all the paradoxes thereof, but keeping track of these characters, it is a tad difficult to get lost in the moment the way you should during a romance.

Thankfully, there is a scene in which the jumping back and forth in time is put on hold, and the film basks in a single, luxurious, romantic moment. Kate does not have a boyfriend in 2006, but she did in 2004, and Alex bumps into him shortly before he is about to put on a surprise birthday party for her. The boyfriend (Dylan Walsh)—one of those dull sticks that exists in these movies for the sole purpose of being dumped by the female protagonist—invites Alex to the party, and Alex, eager to meet Kate in the flesh, introduces himself to her outside on the porch. Agresti allows the scene to unfold slowly, patiently, using just a few long, uninterrupted shots—and while Reeves' talents as an actor may be somewhat limited, he and Bullock do have a certain chemistry (remember 1994's Speed?), and it is fun to see them "meet" like this. And even though we know how the scene will end (not least because the Kate of the future has no recollection of meeting Alex), we are still curious to see how it gets there.

next page... |  1 of 3 | last page