The Lake House throws together two people through correspondence, but separates them in time…

When frustrated Architect, Alex, moves into the lake house, he finds a letter left by the previous owner. In it she asks for her mail to be forwarded if necessary, and apologises for the paw-prints outside and the box in the attic, saying that they were there when she arrived. When he goes to look however there are no paw prints and no box. Stranger still, when later he does go to forward some mail by hand as he’s in the city anyway, he finds that the address doesn’t exist – the place has yet to be built…

The previous owner is Kate, a young intern at the city hospital. Visiting the Lake House again one day she looks in the mailbox and finds a letter from the new owner. Only it appears that he’s living in the past – quite literally…

They begin to correspond and find that they are living in different years. As time goes on however they become fiends, and then friends wanting to be more than friends – but how to bridge the gap?

There is also a sub-plot involving a tragic accident witness by Kate and Alex’s broken relationship with his father. The sub-plots aren’t completely separate however, everything is inter-related – the interesting thing is how they are inter-related. And, perhaps, why…

The leads, Keanu Reeves (Alex) and Sandra Bullock (Kate) really prove their ability in this film. I’ve very rarely seen Reeves playing anything other than a typical action hero (the one notable exception that springs to mind is A Walk in the Clouds), while Bullock I’ve mainly seen in comedies. Of course they teamed up before in the enjoyable action / disaster flick Speed (playing stereotypical action hero . heroine). They are both excellent in this, with reeves in particular surprising me with the depth he gives his character. Alex and Kate are both insular individuals and lonely, though they may not want to admit it to others – or to themselves. Both have in fact tried to deal with various problems primarily by isolating themselves to a large extent. The film is really a character study with a “what if?” scenario, and a very nicely handled one at that. Reeves and Bullock give superb performances and are ably assisted by a fine supporting cast (including Christopher Plummer as Alex’s father, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as his brother, Willeke van Ammelrooy having great fun as Kate’s mother, along with Shohreh Aghdashloo and Dylan Walsh as influential characters whose roles I won’t go into here). The direction (by Alejandro Agresti) is sensitive and thoughtful with a nice element of humour at various points in the film. On the negative side the pacing is a little too slow at times, once or twice crosses the line from thoughtful to mildly tedious. The plot holds together quite well but, as with all plots involving some element of time travel, doesn’t bear too much logical thinking about. Wisely however the film never even attempts to explain why there is this time-bridge that crosses 2 years. There is a major plot twist that can be seen coming miles away, which wasn’t a particular problem because the focus of the ending wasn’t that twist but what occurred afterwards. Kate’s characters seems a little inconsistent at times too. These small faults add up to stop this being a 5-star movie. On the other hand it’s still good, and a nice musical score and good photography compliments the proceedings. It picks up on a few elements of Jayne Austin’s novel Persuasion so if you’re familiar with that you may read more undertones into the film.

Overall, The Lake House is a really nice, feel-good movie that anyone who is even the slightest bit sentimental will enjoy. In fact if I were to sum up the entire film in one word, that word would be nice. It’s only a PG rating too with practically nothing that anyone could find offensive in it. Its runtime of 105 minutes is perhaps a little bit over-long. Overall though a really enjoyable, inoffensive, thought-provoking film that I can’t see many people not liking, and I think Keanu Reeves’ performance will come as a surprise to many – certainly it was to me. (Apparently John Cusack was first choice for the role of Alex, the fact that I’m not disappointed he didn’t get it is a tribute to Reeves.) It’s not perfect but if you watch it I don’t think you’ll come away disappointed.


Related Links


Sandra Bullock:

- Murder By Numbers
- Miss Congeniality
- Two Weeks’ Notice
- The Net

Keanu Reeves:

- Chain Reaction
- Matrix Reloaded
- Matrix Revolutions

(Yes, I do seem to remember insulting his acting ability, or at least his ability to portray emotion, in at least one of those films… possibly even all three… just goes to show how wrong you can be, huh?)


See also: My Top Ten Movies of 2006

Recommended: Yes