Lake House
Time travel movies often fluctuate between wild and wacky comedy (Back To The Future, Bill And Ted) and something that tries to be serious but usually straddles the line of falling into ridiculousness (Timecop, Trancers). But the trickiest thing of all might be to use the concept of time travel to tell either a family oriented drama or even a love story. Frequency achieved this quite well with its father / son dynamic, but then there is a film like Somewhere In Time with its Christopher Reeve love story that actually polorized quite a few viewers. This 2006 release is probably the most successful at using the time travel / love story technique, mostly due to the fact that there is no actual time machine on hand and the separation between the lovers only amounts to two years. The connection is the Lake House of the title where its two main characters labor for two years apart (and the dog which each of them adopt while theyāre there) with what appears to be a magical mailbox that carries their letters to each other across each timespan. Even more interesting is the idea that even though their pen pal relationship across time defies all known laws of time, space and quantum physics, once the two main characters realize the situation that theyāre in, they just shrug off the incredibly unreal aspects of this whole thing in a rather casual way, continuing to correspond while carrying on with their normal lives in their own timeframe. Of course, the correspondence leads to them falling in love without the benefit of literal physical contact, a concept that it would seem is romantic to many women (probably because of the lack of physical contact) but also because of the connection that is obtained through nothing more than words and general personality traits that would come through in the writing of these letters. Keep in mind that with a story like this, that means that the male star and female star would actually be forced to stay offscreen from each other for the majority of the film with each of them carrying their own half of the story with their own roster of supporting actors in tow (with the occasional crossover). That means that casting is truly key here when it comes to the two leads and the success obtained in doing so is most likely the key to the movie working. In the female lead, we get Sandra Bullock, still one of the outright CUTEST actresses to ever live whose career success was based in many ways on her naturalistic, girl next door personality that combined with her smile found her popularity with the masses. Bullock plays a doctor in a Chicago ER (definitely Hell on Earth for any medical professional) who while being depressed at the rigors of her job also finds herself isolated from almost everyone she knows, save for her supervisor (Shoreh Aghdashloo), her heavily accented mother (Willeke Van Ammelrooy) and her on again, off again boyfriend (Dylan Walsh), a slick talking asshole for which it seems every romantic movie actress needs to have before finding her true love. On the other side of the coin we get none other than Keanu Reeves (Ted āTheodoreā Logan himself), a guy who has taken a lot of shit in his career for allegedly being airheaded and vacuous (the Bill and Ted stigma certainly didnāt help) but nonetheless has continually proved his critics wrong by not just necessarily coasting along on his undeniable charisma and presence, but also by pulling off some pretty damn good acting performances over the years that transcended his image and then some. Here he is no different playing an architect living in the shadow of his legendary father of the same trade (Christopher Plummer) who has relegated himself to working on community housing projects because it keeps him working but stops him short of being great while also dealing with a brother (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) who wants to start his own business with him and an assistant (Lynn Collins) who is always desperately flirting with him. But itās the Daddy issues that are weighing him down, as Reeves carries on a love / hate relationship with Plummer that stems from the way that his fatherās marriage to his mother ended (she died a year later from cancer and the arrogant old bastard couldnāt have cared less) as Reeves shares the screen with yet another acting heavyweight in Plummer and shows that he is more than up for it. He finds solace when the letters start going back and forth over the timeline with Bullock as they live out their own little existences yet long to be with each other. The movie thus almost turns into a shared narration between the two, in some ways presented as being a direct voiceover conversation even as we know that is merely their written exchanges in the letters being heard instead. And maybe there really is some credence to this being a more romantic form of meeting and finding your āsoulmateā as itās the personalities that is put across by the so called pen pals that enables them to see each other as who it is that they want to be with. This is notwithstanding the very real and dangerous real life possibility that a potential pen pal could actually be a sociopath who merely PORTRAYS themselves to the other person as being exactly who they want them to be only to learn that itās actually a calculating psychopath possibly even setting them up for the kill (and this HAS happened in the real world sadly). But when the non physical / mental attraction is real and both parties are of the utmost sincerity (as they are here), then itās easy to see how one would consider this relationship to be something that is actually worth pursuing. But with the two year separation dynamic that is essential to the plot, how do they make it happen? Itās possible that Bullock in 2006 could relay to Reeves in 2004 just where she was and what exactly she was doing on that day so that he could seek her out, but that would just make Reeves into a stalker breathing down the neck of an unsuspecting Bullock in 2004. So what it comes down to is that Reeves (being two years back) is just going to have to wait it out for another 2 years all while having no correspondence with Bullock during that period until the time comes for him to finally approach her with her own memory still fresh from all the times that they have āspokenā. A common fallacy for any screenplay that takes on these type of logistics is to have plot holes aplenty and sadly this one is no exception (having been adapted from a South Korean film of all things where the story was reportedly given a much more metaphysical bent), bending the rules and twisting them in some ways that donāt seem quite right (unlike Frequency which at least managed to play fair with most of its fantastical aspects) with the most glaring issue being a major incident involving the two main characters where Bullock (having already learned the name of the Reeves character) should have definitely known all along that she was dealing with Reeves during that incident and yet was portrayed as being ignorant of that fact (while this viewer covered his face in disbelief) all so that it could set up the emotionally charged happy ending, which still works wonderfully well since the two leads are so likable that it feels good having it end that way (and the magical mailbox that drives this whole conceit apparently decided to do the right thing). It also turns out that besides letters, entire books can be inserted into the mailbox for transport either forward or backward in time (leading to Reeves getting to read a book in 2004 that hasnāt even been published yet) which gives off the sneaking feeling that (ala Marty McFly) maybe having knowledge of near future events can be used to make some money as well, but no, these two lovers think nothing of the possibilities that their own little time portal can afford them except trying to manipulate events to bring themselves together. One can get confused at how exactly the timeline plays out at certain points (Bullock was supposedly the second occupant of the house after Reeves but we only see her there when she is picking up the mail as she is shown having an apartment in the city), but when you have Sandy Bullockās charm and Keanu Reevesā charisma carrying a whole entire movie on their backs, you tend not to worry too much save for that emotional happy ending (even if Keanu probably had to live in a cave for two years in order to remain safe and not be tempted at all by other women) which even in the most ridiculous romantic films (of which first and foremost this really is) can actually be worth the journey to get there when it is done right as it is hereā¦
8/10