Wow. What a stinker. Tara‘s already relayed how hard it was for us even to get to the theatre to see this piece of crap, so I’m not going to go over it again. Suffice it to say that The Lake House wasn’t even funbad. And I was disappointed.
In short, it’s the love story between Kate (Sandra Bullock) and Alex (Keanu Reeves), who both live in a gorgeous glass house on, you guessed it, a lake. Here’s the trick though, they’re each living in separate realities—two years apart. Kate’s in 2006, while Alex is in 2004. How do they have a love affair then? Well, they communicate through a magic mailbox beside the lake house. You heard me right: a magic mailbox.
Yes, magical mail fairies come and deliver the letters (because computers and/or the internet simply don’t exist in the film’s reality) from one to the other across the space/time continuum. Because they have flowery prose and delicious scripted personalities, Kate and Alex fall deeply in love. But here’s the catch (spoiler alert!), because Alex is two years behind, he can try to find Kate in his time, and he does, multiple times. He chases after her train, has the same dog, oh, and hell, they even make out at some party—and she doesn’t remember. Keep in mind that Kate’s a lonely doctor in Chicago whose only had two boyfriends, so you know, making out with some hot random stranger at a party is just something that would slip her mind. Noooo, she wouldn’t play it over and over again in her mind, having some, ahem, private moments at home or anything, noooo, it just slips right away from her because she’s miserable. There’s only room in her brain for doctor stuff and unhappiness.
Then, all kinds of other silly sh*t happens that’s totally implausible, Alex doesn’t show up for a date, she doesn’t even bother to look in the newspaper to find out why, or even bother to do anything except break up with him, in a letter of course, because their love cannot overcome the boundaries of time.
Yawn.
Oh, and Alex dies in one of the scenes in the first third of the movie, only you don’t know that it’s him and, because Kate’s a doctor, she rushes to save him, only, again, after making out with him two years ago, she still doesn’t recognize him. Oh, and he’s not wearing any ID either, and no one at the hospital tells her that it’s him.
See, confusing and silly right?
And why do all miserable female doctors in the movies these days have to have paranormal love affairs (Reese, I’m looking at you)? What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned romance where the couple actually lives, eats and breaths in the same city? It’s a shame too because I like that both Sandra and Keanu are ‘of a certain age’ and they’ve got great chemistry, but my goodness, it’s a mess of a movie.
There’s a happy ending though. Take some solace in that.
(And I’m sorry if I spoiled the movie for you.)
A magic mailbox. I have been wondering how they do that since someone told me they were two years apart. I just had to read the first two paragraphs to know I am not going!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I was SO hoping this wouldn’t be a piece of crap.
Sigh.