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The Lake House part 17:  Visionary coincidence

It just so happens; it happens just so.

In The Phantom it is said that every movie is permitted one incredible coincidence.  What is remarkable at this point in The Lake House, though, is not so much that Kate Forster drags her boyfriend Morgan to the very architectural firm founded by Alex Wyler and his brother Henry, but that after all the contact she had with Alex and her attention to the death of his father Simon and the delivery of the book about Simon Wyler's life it never occurred to her that the architect Henry Wyler might be related to the architect Alex Wyler with whom she had so intimately corresponded.

It would have worked better if Henry had been a sister, married and thus with a different name; but then, the relationship between Alex and his little brother is what gives rise to the creation of Visionary Vanguard Associates, their architectural firm founded about the time Kate moved into the lake house, late 2004 or early 2005.  So perhaps Kate never heard Henry's name until that meeting; that won't work, though, because at the meeting he specifically says that they spoke about the design approach previously, and so she must have been introduced to him then.  Maybe Wyler is so common a name that it did not occur to her they might be related, like Jones or Smith.  There might be plenty of Wylers--the people who make the lemonade, and...well, the people who make the lemonade, at least.  So it didn't occur to her that architect Henry Wyler might be related to those other two architects with that name.  My personal experience is that even with a name like Young people ask if you're related to someone they know, but not everyone does, so perhaps it just never occurred to this bright young doctor.

It does not compute.  The notion that it would never occur to Kate Forster that Henry Wyler might be related to Alex Wyler seems incomprehensible.  It ought to snap our disbelief suspenders.

Somehow, though, she does not make the connection until she sees Alex' sketches of the lake house.  This then sets up the final and fatal anomaly of the film, the one which changes everything.  Kate makes the connection, that the man who died almost in her arms at Daley Plaza two years ago to the day was the man with whom she had her correspondence, and she decides to save his life by sending him the last letter to warn him.

The problems of that letter are so major that--well, this changes everything, and hopefully we can see it all next time.

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Webmaster of Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies, M. Joseph Young is cited and consulted by philosophy professors, film critics, and scriptwriters. His other works include Multiverser, several other books, and many Internet articles.

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