Kate Forster is a lonely doctor who once lived in an unusual lakeside house and begins exchanging letters with its former resident Alex Wyler a frustrated architect. The only problem? They are somehow communicating two years apart!
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For whatever reason I have found myself watching The Lake House quite a few times over the years, which is rather strange considering I don't really like it that much. The idea behind it is quite interesting but in reality it just does not work out, especially with the ending. Actually maybe that is the big problem that it is actually quite ok until the ending?
The time shift is between 2006 when Kate is leaving the lake house to move to Chicago and asks the next tenant to forward her mail to her new address. Two years earlier in 2004 is when Alex Wyler arrives at the lake house and somehow finds Kate's letter in the mailbox. This is then something that continues and Kate is able to tell Alex things that are going to happen in the house. They watch the mailbox and its flag go up and down as they are standing next to it.
Many letters are passed across and items are found after writing things within the letters to each other. Alex manages to meet Kate but does not mention anything because she does not know about the letters (yet) that is where it begins to get rather confusing in all honesty and loses a lot of its charm. It feels more like a few plots mixed and mashed up together.
The performances from Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are strong enough and they do have good chemistry with each other, although they don't actually share that many scenes where they interact not through letters. Christopher Plummer is a nice little bonus in a supporting role. I did enjoy the rewatch to see Chicago after my trip last year, so I guess that was something I can be positive about some lovely shots of that great city!
Something a film like this always makes me think about though is how sad it is that writing letters is well and truly a thing of the past. Like who even knows what someone's hand writing looks like these days? Certainly not the same as an email is it?