Categories: Real Estate

The Lake House: A Love Story that Transcends Time

Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves reteam for romance in director Alejandro Agresti’s remake of the Korean film Siworae (2000), exploring a mysterious mailbox that somehow bridges time. After moving away from her peaceful lakeside home, a lonely physician begins writing letters to the frustrated architect who now occupies the unusual house, only to discover that they’re living two years apart.

For Kate Forster (Bullock) and Alex Wyler (Reeves), the mailbox at the lake house that Alex’s father built for his mother is the bridge between their two times. After completing her residency, physician Kate moves from the lake house to the city to take a new position in a busy hospital, and leaves a note for the new tenant in the mailbox. Architect Alex buys the lake house and discovers the note, but responds with confusion, because as far as he knows no one has lived in the house since his own family moved out of it years earlier.

After discovering that Kate is living two years into Alex’s future, the two begin communicating through the “magical” mailbox. Through their letters, they learn that they’ve actually met, in Alex’s present/Kate’s past, and Alex lives those moments as Kate remembers them. He swears they’ll be together someday, but she hesitates to hope that such a thing is possible.

At the heart of this fairy tale romance is the plot for Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a love story about a man and woman who “almost fall in love” but part ways because the “timing” is not quite right, then reunite years later to discover whether their love has stood the test of time. During one of their “chance” meetings in Kate’s past, she tells Alex about it, and the point at which this scene occurs is strategically orchestrated to enlighten the audience to the fact that Kate and Alex are living out the plot of what is her favorite book. The time-transcending twist added to Persuasion‘s plot by Siworae screenwriter Eun-Jeong Kim translates well into David Auburn’s Lake House screenplay and makes for a heart-wrenching romance, perpetuating the notion that love is timeless.

There are a lot of nice effects that enhance the supernatural nuance of the film – too many to enumerate, but all of which build and blend to construct a complex time continuum where one event affects another, which affects another after another, until the sequence of events start to make sense as they are repeated within each character’s time frame. The sequences themselves are brilliantly meshed together, where we switch from Kate to Alex to Kate and back (and even see them together, thanks to the “split-screen” effects), and you’re left wondering, anticipating, hoping, desperate for the moment when Alex will step into Kate’s present – his own future – and the lovers will be united to live happily ever after.

The genius of this film is its ability to keep you on that edge to its very last moments. When they arrange to meet – in Kate’s present – the unexpected consequences are devastating, and Kate forces herself to move on with her life despite Alex’s repeated attempts to contact her. Bullock gives her standard beautiful performance, and your heart breaks with hers when she faces that moment of realization that she has lost the love of her life forever. Reeves is warm, endearing, and thoroughly appealing, the consummate romantic lead as usual but much more comfortable in this role than in others I’ve seen him perform.

At times, it’s a bit confusing as to how the two are communicating when both are away from the house (and the time-linking mailbox) – in the same place but at separate times. However, the transitions are so smooth, the two so in synch with each other that it’s just natural to assume the bridge is being gapped by the mysterious mailbox and what we’re seeing onscreen is the resultant effects of those communications.

The distinguished Christopher Plummer gives a stout performance as Alex’s distant father, Simon Wyler, a man so obsessed with his work that it costs him his family. Upon learning of his death, Kate sends Alex a copy of Simon’s published memoir from the future, which Alex saw him working on in the past. Another delightful twist is that the doctor who was taking care of Simon at the time of his death is the same one Kate now works closely with at the hospital.

Also integral to the lovers’ connection is Jack, a stray dog who belonged to both of them – Alex has her first, but she runs away around the time Alex moves out of the lake house, then reappears when Kate moves in. Jack is the impetus of the whole déjà vu element that brings Alex and Kate together in the first place, and she’s a sweet, clever addition to the story. Brilliantly filmed in a gorgeous setting, with characters you can’t help falling in love with, The Lake House is one of those films that all soft-hearted hopeless romantics should have in their DVD collection, and one you will enjoy watching over and over.

The Lake House
Warner Bros. (2006)
PG
Available on DVD

Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves, Christopher Plummer