Poll Position: The Lake House (2006)

So here we are. Another day, another romance. This time around I watched The Lake House which was lucky enough to pull up alongside The Notebook and tied as the romance movie poll winner. I've always wanted to see this movie as I knew it had time travel in it, but as a kid I couldn't be seen dead watching a love movie! Even though I didn't like The Notebook in the end, I could tell it was a well made movie with a lot of heart. I was hoping this one would have enough of a sci-fi/fantasy spin that it would be more for me, unlike The Notebook. After the jump, you'll find my full thoughts on this "timeless" romance! (see what I did there? hehe)


For those who don't know, this movie is about a pair of people who meet over time. That doesn't really mean what it normally means either. It seems Alex, played by Keanu Reeves, is just moving into a designer house called "The Lake House", just as Kate, played by Sandra Bullock, is moving out. She leaves a note for the next owner to forward any mail to her that goes the wrong way, and Alex finds this note. The problem is that Alex lives 2 years in the past from Kate! They soon discover after a few letters that the mailbox in front of the house transports whatever is inside it 2 years forward or back, depending on which time you're in. As they continue to correspond, they fall in love.

Now it's going to be pretty hard to talk about The Lake House without comparing it to The Notebook since I've just watched them so close to each other. There were a few things that popped out to me reminding me of the other movie. First of all, the stack of letters that the guy keeps writing even if the girl is ignoring them. Secondly there's the basic idea of the relationship not working "now" and they have to wait many years before their lives work themselves out and they can finally be together. At one point, Kate recounts a favorite book of hers called "Persuasion" in which two lovers can't be together when they're young, but they meet up again years later once their lives have worked themselves out and they get a second chance to make it work. Sounds an awful lot like The Notebook to me! Creepy coincidence.

Anyways, more about the movie. I have mixed feelings about it. Some aspects were alright, while others could have been better. I don't think anything was down-right bad, but it all smacked of "just ok". On paper the idea of the time travel sounds great, but I didn't like the way it ended up being depicted in the movie. At first, it was really cool when they're both standing at the mailbox at the same time and you see the old red flag go up and down by itself as they jot notes back and forth on the envelope.

As the movie progresses though, it devolves into a time saving device of simply having them speak aloud what they're actually writing to each other. The scene often splits in two to show both of them inexplicably in the same place writing their replies. Then they start just speaking aloud and even look at each other. While I can understand the idea behind this, that they feel like they're actually talking to each other, the fact is that they're writing letters. Each reply would have to be taken back to the mailbox, but they're usually in the heart of Chicago while they're talking. Also, each quick thought or partial sentence they say would have to be a new letter sent through time. Now this is exactly what they did while they were both at the mailbox AT THE SAME TIME, but this wouldn't work while they're having twilight dinner in an empty office building... for whatever reason.

Scenes like this, while conceptually cool, just don't work since they need to go to the mailbox

Part of the fun of the movie that I did like comes not from the time traveling conversations, but when Alex uses his knowledge of what the future should be like to effect it from the past. We end up with all kinds of time paradoxes that shouldn't work, but the great thing about time travel is that you can never really think about it too hard, or else you'll just hurt yourself. None of the paradoxes should work, but that's why they're paradoxes. It's already something the defies explanation, so why bother trying. Along those lines, I had figured out the "surprise" very early in the film, but then again, you can never predict those pesky time paradoxes, now can you? So in that way, I was surprised as I waited for events of the past to catch up with themselves.

I never really got into the writing or the acting or any of those other things, but all of those things fell into the "it was ok" zone. While the ending was interesting, and I generally liked the time travel stuff, the actual romance seemed more real when they were separated by 2 years of time and writing letters, than any of the times they actually met. It was nice, but never to the heart-exploding sweetness-overload that The Notebook had. I did like the final relationship with the father though. Anyways, this movie just seemed to end with a bit of a whimper to me. But at least it didn't frustrate me to the point of argument like The Notebook did. Even so, if you're looking specifically for a romance, I'd probably still recommend Notebook over this simply because the production level was better, and even just the parts with the elderly couple trumps this movie hands down. Sadly, I have to say that you're probably not missing much if you miss The Lake House.