The Lake House

Rating: PG – Contains Low Level Offensive Language.
Duration: 108 mins.
Genre: Romance.
Actors: Keanu Reeves, Christopher Plummer, Sandra Bullock, Dylan Walsh, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
Director: Alejandro Agresti.
Release Date: Available Now.

When you think of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock together in a movie, you immediately think of Speed.

Speed was a great popcorn-for-the-brain action movie. But it was more, it had chemistry. That chemistry came by way of Reeves and Bullock.

Now I’m not a fan of Sandra Bullock, be it because she chooses bad movies or that she’s just a talent free zone, I don’t know. But I normally go out of my way not to see a movie with her in it.

The Lake House was different. My wife wanted to see the movie, so I got it for her. The storyline alone was a little too kooky for me to start with, add in the Sandra Bullock factor and no hope of any bullet-time action sequences and I was looking at a very boring night in front of the TV, albeit with a beautiful woman cuddled up to me.

But then something happened, my hard-arsed maleness disappeared as I started to enjoy this unlikely story of two lovers who just can’t seem to hook up, no matter how hard they try.

Why can’t they seem to hook up you ask, well that’s because of the storyline.

Alex Wyler (Reeves) moves into an unusual glass house on stilts on a lake front, he’s needing to chill out for a while, and sees the rundown, unique abode a suitable challenge.

Alex finds a note in the letterbox from the previous tenant, apologising for the dog’s footprints along the path, footprints that don’t exist, until later in the day.

Perplexed, Alex leaves a reply in the letter box, and thus begins a pen-pal relationship, that turns romantic and incidentally transcends time and space.

You see the previous tenant; Kate Forster is actually the tenant that moves in after Alex leaves. Whoa, there’s a Matrix moment for you. Alex is conversing through notes with someone living two years in the future.

Now you see what I mean about kooky.

But it’s not. It’s incredibly well done and it’ll hook you and pull you in.

I’m not going to say it’s a perfect romantic movie, it’s just a damn good one.

Its multiple storylines add some complexity without being complex. It’s pure fluff when you try and dissect it, but that’s the point.

Reeves and Bullock prove that they don’t need a maniacal terrorist and constant action scenes to keep a romantic subplot moving along.

Food for thought:
Can love really transcend time and space?

Rent or Buy?
Buy it, you’ll enjoy cuddling up and watching this movie more than once.