Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are easy to look at and capable actors who previously persuaded us that they were a promising couple in Speed, and in the film The Lake House they succeed in creating a credible relationship entirely by correspondence. The oddity is, somehow their correspondence is traveling through time. There is also a dog, a bitch whom she names "Jackie" but calls "Jack", who appears and disappears in not-quite-magical ways at moments that help bring the couple together.
It is a magical fantasy, and as with many fantasies the magic is never explained. What we know is that when she is leaving the house by the lake she rented for a brief time, Dr. Kate Forster (Bullock) places a letter in the mailbox which is then received by a previous tenant, architect Alex Wyler (Reeves). Wyler writes back, because some of the things she said about the property do not match what he sees, and his letter mysteriously travels to the future to be received by her. Not surprisingly, it takes several interactions before they recognize and accept that they are communicating across time.
Time travel fans should be reminded immediately of Frequency, in which father and son communicate across thirty years by ham radio. This film has many of the same problems which plagued that one, although because the messages traveling through time are using a mailbox rather than a radio the problems are to some degree simplified. However, the stylistic telling of the story at times blurs the problems, as their correspondence begins to look like conversation and it becomes unclear exactly what happens when, in terms of how the receipt of the letters interacts with the events of their lives.
Romantic fantasies being what they are, you will already have guessed that they eventually manage to meet in person. It has that concept that not even time can keep the lovers apart, a popular theme covered in Somewhere in Time (the cult favorite), Kate and Leopold (the box office favorite), Happy Accidents (the most interesting in time travel terms), and to a lesser degree Millennium and Deja Vu (action films with a love story element). Making it more interesting, they encounter each other several times before her end of the correspondence begins, and for one reason and another he is unable to tell her so except by his letters which reach her two years later. It is definitely a tear-jerker with the sort of happy ending that leaves damp eyes in the audience.
Even when the time travel is magical it still must follow rules of some form, and there are several rules that this does follow. The link created by the mailbox is always the same length of time, two years, and time moves at the same rate at both ends (overlooking the fact that 2004 is leap year, so it apparently skips a day at his end). Thus if she puts a note in the mailbox, it appears at his end "immediately", and if he takes five minutes to read and reply, his response reaches her in the future five minutes after she sent her note. This makes more plausible some of the seeming conversational parts, in which it is as if they are text-messaging each other, but with pen and paper. They are also able to send other objects--she sends him a scarf and a book--as long as they are placed in the mailbox with an accompanying letter. It also appears that the letters do not leave their point of origin until they are removed at their destination point, that is, if either puts a letter in the box it will be in the box both in the future and the past until one of them removes it from the box. At one point, Alex has placed several letters in the box, and they have simply accumulated there because Kate has not collected them.
There remain many problematic aspects of the story to address, places where the rules don't seem to work quite right or the interaction of events with letters seems wrong. Those will be part of our series, as we attempt to unravel the anomalies in the film The Lake House.
Comments
Is the profanity necessary?!!!
Thanks for the note, Earl. I apologize if I offended you, I presume by using the proper word for a female canine ("dog" is technically a male) to identify a female canine. The American Kennel Club uses it in all their broadcasts, and it is used by breeders and veterinarians fairly consistently.
The "profane" aspect of the word only arises from decontextualizing it from its proper connection to canines and using it to impugn a woman's sexual morality. This is the case with nearly all "profane" words--a theologian can speak about hell with impunity, but it is vulgar to connect the place as the home of a particular (human) individual. In England the word "bloody" has a profane connection to the Crucifixion of Christ, but they still use the word to describe crime scenes.
I make a point of avoiding profanity; I still use words appropriately when they are appropriate which would be profane used inappropriately.
I hope that helps.
--M. J. Young
Lake House is about understanding the value of someone who died. The doctor wondered what kind of person died in her arms. What would have happened had he survived? If she could warn him from the present to the past? Love and blah blah blah.
Lake House is a remake of a Korean film. Know your facts, do your research first.
Not a fan--
Thanks for your note.
The Wiz is a remake of The Wizard of Oz. The moral of the original is that you can find everything that really matters in life right at home; the moral of the remake is your life will never begin until you leave home to find it.
What matters in analyzing the time travel elements, and really any aspect of, a film is not its sources but what actually is put on the screen--what message will be communicated to the theatrical audience. Those viewers will not see what the Korean film tried to say, but only what this picture itself is saying. Its message is tied to the love story between two people. This doctor did not wonder about warning someone before the accident happened; it was never said that she gave a thought to that. She did not warn him until she realized how much she loved him.
Let's stick to analyzing what the film actually says, and not what ideas inspired it.
Thanks again.
--M. J. Young
I haven't seen The Wiz. Review please?
Was buckled in?
Review The Wiz? It's not a time travel film, but I'll give a few recollections and impressions. All black cast, urbanized a young Michael Jackson scarecrow, Nipsey Russell tinman, Richard Prior wizard, Diana Ross Dorothy, Lena Horne Glenda, all black cast, well acted with some catchy new music, late 1970's. I enjoyed it, and the message (that you can't get anywhere in life unless you take the first step) is challenging. I mention it often enough that I'd recommend seeing it, even if only for its historic value, but it's certainly enjoyable to watch.
IMDB listing: www.imdb.com/title/tt0078504/
--M. J. Young
I thot Wizard of Oz was time travel.
The dream wasn't real but was time travel? It had sequel so was not dream? Return to Oz. Did they have second Wiz?
you steal a few?
Doc--
Baum's original Oz book had Dorothy flying home across the Great American Desert in silver slippers, which she then stored in her closet. MGM took a lot of liberties with their script, wanting to leave the viewer uncertain whether Oz was real or a dream. Baum wrote several more Oz books, and eventually someone made a film from one of the, but it was not very successful; other efforts to tie in to one of the world's most popular movies have similarly failed, and none were made by those who made the original, so they would only be sequels in the sense that they attempt to continue a story told by someone else (as if I tried to sell the next Middle Earth book).
But nothing in either Baum's original nor MGM's version remotely suggests time travel. Oz is presented as existing "somewhere else" in the present, like Narnia or Wonderland, as a place to which Dorothy travels--or of which she dreams.
--M. J. Young
Maybe the time travel was in between?
I also watch fantasy like Narnia. In Narnia time passes but children only passed a few years. How is it possible and not time travel? I know of another movie: Turtles in Time. It was third in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle films.
Did you see Caveman with Ringo Starr?
Last of Mohicans with Daniel Day Lewis? Is he relative Richard Lewis TV actor?
thx for answering my questions
charm?
"Maybe the time travel was in between?"
If it's not in the film, it's not subject to analysis.
"In Narnia time passes but children only passed a few years. How is it possible and not time travel?"
C. S. Lewis makes the point that time in different universes need not be linked, and thus that centuries in one can pass in minutes in the other.
"Turtles in Time" I'm aware of and have seen it. It does have some interesting points.
"Caveman with Ringo Starr" I heard bad things about, but it's not time travel, just pseudo-historical.
"Last of Mohicans" is also pseudo-historical.
"Daniel Day Lewis? Is he relative Richard Lewis...?"
Try IMDB or fan sites; I'm not a good resource for actor personal information, although I doubt it. Brooklyn-born Richard was a stand-up comic who moved into acting in the sit-com from stand-up craze of the 80's. British Daniel got his break in the film My Left Food. Nothing connects them but a common name.
--M. J. Young
Haha "My Left Food" ! Classic!
O.K., egg on my face, I must clean my glasses or something.
That film is, as our Typo Police officer can tell you, "My Left Foot". I apologize for the error.
--M. J. Young
Why was egg being cast on your face? I read imdb and it says nothing in regards to Richard Lewis and Daniel Day Lewis having relations but I feel they may be relatives because they have for many years had the same haircut.
thank you for the suggestion of imdb as it answers many questions for me. I am not sure of one thing.
Sorry, Doc--"Egg on my face" is an American expression for embarrassment.
I can't prove that Brooklyn-born Richard Lewis and British Daniel Day Lewis are not related, but the former is Jewish and I don't believe the latter is, although I know considerably less about him. "Lewis" is a fairly common last name, an anglicization of the French "Louis", a significant name in post-Norman England when British surnames were forming. It's not as unlikely as a connection between American patriot John Paul Jones and British entertainer Davey Jones, or between me and quarterback Vince Young, it's still very improbable.
--M. J. Young
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