The Lake House 



Some weeks ago in my review of The Da Vinci Code I noted that we had seen the preview for The Lake House and I had made a pun by calling it Speed Bump after the previous movie the two leads had starred in together and because it was obviously going to be a much slower-paced movie than the testosterone-laden Speed. If from that reference you concluded that the film would be a cumbersome, lethargic chick-flick, well, don't judge a movie by its previews or your reviewer's preconceived notions.

Yes, the movie is a Chick-flick with the premise that asks the question, "what if you could reach across time to touch someone?" and contains the requisite doses of romance, tragedy and angst necessary for a successful film that will appeal to the women in the audience. Before you dismiss the previous sentence as a sexist oversimplification, remember that men and women do go to movies for entirely different reasons and the films each gender enjoys, rarely overlap. The Lake House is one of the films that may overlap the disparate genres. While not exactly a time travel movie, it does have time continuum paradoxes for the guys to mull over in their minds during the course of the film. You also have the conflict between father and son in the film and most of the men I have known over the years have had some issue with their fathers, whether stated openly or not — Alex (Keanu Reeves) and Simon (Christopher Plummer) have a relationship that while not at all hostile, is marred by the seeming indifference on Simon's part and resentment of that indifference from Alex's. I suppose a great many sons wonder if there is any love left for them beyond the self-absorbed nature of their fathers; there is certainly that question between these two. The Lake House of the title is a connecting point for these two however, as Simon designed and built it and Alex later buys and lives in it. It also becomes the connection between Alex and Kate (Sandra Bullock).

Well, a connection if you can suspend belief long enough to accept the premise of two people having a real-time conversation through letters, two years apart. Oh and did I mention that they share a dog? (But then, as Roger Ebert noted in his review, dogs live outside time, so we'll grant this as a given.) Alex even arranges for Kate to live in the Lake House.

Whether or not things work out for the two leads is not nearly as important as how they get there, the building of the bond between them, so I won't tell you how things turn out, but just tell you that I enjoyed the journey. Was not even all that bothered by the little mistakes in the film; like Alex telling his brother that "there isn't even any steps down to the lake" when you can plainly see there is. And where the heck is the attic in that house?!! Biggest quibble though is that logically the end of the movie can occur because of the beginning, or is it the other way around? Oh screw it, go see the movie and we'll analyze it over coffee/soft drinks sometime.


8 out of 10 stars.

IMDB Link.
Official Site.
  

Posted: Tue - July 11, 2006 at 07:14 AM          

©