Okay, rubbing my hands together in suspended anticipation, I popped the DVD in, hoping for an improved story line and sophisticated Hollywood treatment of the "Il Mare", The Lake House, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Somewhere along the movie I realize that this is much better than the Korean original version, which was first released in 2000.

I realized a few other things.

Like, just what in the hay is Love? To me, true love is a passionate sweeping off the feet, all blazing fireplaces, violence and gun play if necessary, to get the girl. To some others, it's setting your house on fire and fleeing while you laugh all the way with your husband Tom Greene. It's Kate Winslet's vivid handprint on the foggy interior of a car parked inside the Titanic. You must be a chickenhawk swooping down and picking up your amorously intended with mucho gusto and you must fall in head first into the murky waters with full faith that fate will guide your way. Isn't this true about Love?

Apparently not.

In the Lake House, character Alex Wyler, played by Reeves, is very practical and gentle architect who falls in love with Dr. Kate Forster (Bullock) who happened to move into the very same house situated on a Lake somewhere near Chicago. The mailbox, due to some crazy vortex in the time-space continuum, forwards the note that Dr. Forster leaves inside back in time, two years earlier to Alex, who had lived there before her.

Thus the unlikely impetus of this romance is born. Throughout the movie, the two characters exchange notes back and forth, enabling each to understand the other's deepest desires, fears, wishes. Without giving away too much of the story, I have to say that this was the indication that these two people are accustomed to each's destined existential loneliness but in no way are they so desperate that they will arrange to meet each other immediately, due to the fear that doing so will Change Things.

Also the fact that they don't immediately call the scientific authorities or the press regarding the miraculous mailbox downplays the magic of the mailbox at the house. Alex Wyler and Dr. Forster's courtship evolves around passing notes, going on imaginary dates and discussing Jane Austen's Persuasion.

That made me believe that they are a pair of realistic professionals and that the love that develops between them is an entirely different concept from the blazing inferno I know as Love. This is their modest, manageable and friendly love, with enough patience to keep putting off meeting each other in person because Dr. Forster is unsure.

Another thing that I realized is that, even after the wildly popular Matrix trilogy and subsequent sub-par roles in which Keanu Reeves has played antiseptic, unfeeling, untalented actor, Mr. Reeves has what it takes to emit gentle ripples of empathy and understanding. Sandra Bullock's acting is just as good; the latter scene in which her character discovers that Keanu has died, her face transforms from a mellow, happily fianced doctor to a shocked and grief-stricken lover in a matter of seconds.

I cried watching that.

The filming of the location also enforces the impression that this love affair is underrated and downplayed but is just as wholesome and beautiful as any dramatic running-toward-each-other-in-the-rain-then-kiss love affair. The camera captures images of the shimmering lake, the weeds and bushes around the house, the changing seasons.
Keanu Reeves' character plants trees that in two year's time, graces the entrace to Dr. Forster's apartment complex, and he runs after a departing train with a copy of Persuasion which Dr. Forster had left behind.

The cinematography and the quality of the acting appeals to that inner romantic hiding somewhere inside. There are
enough pestering questions in my mind about the movie's timeline not making sense so I suppose the movie editing could have been a little better, but all in all, I enjoyed the movie and learned to appreciate the dynamic Keanu-Sandra duo once more.






Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12