Time Travel
The Lake House
24/02/10 19:18 Filed in: Drama
The Lake House (2006)
Reviewed by Mike Attebery
‘The Lake House’ is a decidedly ridiculous movie, with two stars I neither hate, nor make any regular effort to seek out, but there’s something about this impossible movie, with its absurd premise, that makes me want to rewatch it every couple of years.
Steph was out of town last weekend, so that left the window open for some truly shameful indulgences. I fixed a White Russian, collapsed on the couch, and fired up the Blu-ray for this 2006 eye roller. And let me just tell you, it was as fun as ever. Well, maybe fun isn’t the right word, but it was certainly enjoyable in all of its innane ‘Lake House’ ways.
So then, what’s the premise? Lets just say it involves two people, one apparently time-traveling dog, an impossibly cool (but most likely quite drafty) home suspended on stilts over what looks to be a rather unpicturesque lake. Oh, and lets not forget the time portal mailbox through which these two characters, Alex Foster (Keanu Reeves) and Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock) exchange increasingly candid and lovelorn letters. You see, how do I put this, the mailbox appears to be a portal between Alex’s life in 2004, and Kate’s life in 2006. The bond between the two is this nutty lakehouse, in which the two of them lived, just two years and dimensions apart. So thats it, the ultimate twist on the epistolary novel turned movie.
Why do these two fall in love? I don’t really know. What do they have in common, aside from this house, which for all intents and purposes, we really don’t see all that much of? I really can’t say. Hell, we don’t even know if they have the same taste in anything, even architecture or paint chips. But they write, and they write, occasionally they kneal before the mailbox and wait for the red flag to magically go up or down, then they breathlessly compose another note and send it on its way through the mystical, postage free mailbox. There are impasses, speed bumps, the occasional death here and there, and then the movie ends. Does it end happily? I won’t say. Is happiness the ultimate destination for either of these two? I don’t know. But still I watch this time and again.
So what do I like? I like the cinematography. I like the scenes set in Chicago. I like the touches of architectural information peppered throughout. And yes, I even like the performances of the film’s two leads. Maybe I’m just a simpleton, or maybe I just have house envy, but this is like a chicken soup movie for me. When the weather gets cold, the light goes down, and the house grows quiet, this is just one of those movie I tend to put on.
Do I think it’s worth checking out? Yeah, it’s interesting. Would I badger you relentlessly if you didn’t add this to your pile of must-watch movies? Not at all, but if you’re game, you might check it out and see what you think.