In one sense, everything in Lake House begins on Valentines Day 2006, when Dr. Kate Forster fails to save a dying stranger at an accident scene at Daley Plaza in Chicago. She just began her first post-residency job at Chicago City Hospital and was lunching with her mother when the accident occurs, and Alex Wyler, whom she did not recognize and whose name she apparently did not hear at that time, died in her arms.
The significance of this moment emerges through the film. We do not know that it is Alex; we know only that she saw a man crossing the street hit by a bus and could not save him, and that it shook her terribly. She much later writes to him about it. At that moment, she says, she thought "It can't end just like that on Valentines Day," and she wondered about the people who loved him waiting at home who would never see him again, and then, "What if there is no one?" She wondered "What if you live your whole life and no one is waiting?"
We would like to think that this moment triggers the magic. She had already left her note for the "next tenant", but it is a few days after this that she runs up to the lake house, to be somewhere peaceful, to look for answers. She checks the mailbox, perhaps to see if her note is there, and instead finds his reply; and from there the magic connects them.
It is significant, too, because Kate has become very much the sort of person who just might spend her life disconnected. She has broken ties with boyfriend Morgan and moved into the hectic life of doctor in hospital practice. If she has a future, it will return her to Morgan, who is more controlling than caring, more practical than romantic. He will marry her because a successful lawyer such as himself would do well to have a successful doctor for a wife, not because they have all that much in common or any real feelings for each other. She will marry him as the default, the man who happens to be there and is willing to do so.
Thus there is sense to this connection to a stranger triggering the magic, starting the story. She cares enough about a dying man to wonder whether he has anyone significant in his life, and almost he does not; she becomes that significant person by reaching into his past and contacting him. And thus the magical "beautiful fantasy where time stood still" would begin.
For that to be so, we have a very narrow window for our initial events. We surmise that Kate leaves the lake house not more than two days before Valentine's Day, with just enough time to move into her apartment but not to do any shopping and yet not have the dog starve for lack of dog food before meeting her mother for lunch at Daley Plaza on Valentines Day, 2006. We know that on her next day off after Valentines Day she travels to the lake house and finds his reply. We also know that the first time he stopped at the lake house in February 2004 the flag was already raised but he did not check it until his second arrival. That would mean that he arrived on or after Valentines Day 2004, goes to work perhaps the next day, and then picks up her letter that night and responds the next morning, which in turn means that she could not reach the lake house to receive his response until February fifteenth at the earliest. This is plausible, and launches our timelines for us.
Comments
But who was the robot?
I'm sorry, Turnbull--what robot? There is no robot in this movie. Are you watching the right movie?
--M. J. Young
I thought the exact same thing. The robot, or what we are to assume to be a robot, shows up in the background at Chicago City Hospital and then is seen two different times at Daley Plaza. I thought for sure that it would be addressed later in the movie but its never really explained, unless I'm just completely missing something. I haven't read the book, though. Do you know if the robot is explained in more detail in the novel?
How did you get this barnacle? Sounds like P.McG. got insulted by something you said. Anyway, you are letting him ruin your essays. Don't respond. I don't know if American audiences reacted well to the magical mailbox but it was very easy for the original Korean audiences. Sometimes you hold an orange in your hand and keep asking,"What kind of apple is this?" You may never find the answers.
Ken--there is no robot, sorry. The James Patterson book "The Lake House" has no connection to this movie, and I find no evidence of a book that does; in any case, these analyses are about the movies, not book versions of the stories.
Nalhf--probably good advice, but difficult to apply. Good trolls come across as honest idiots, and honest idiots sometimes seem like bad trolls. There is something of a trick to replying with courtesy, not answering perceived rudeness with actual rudeness, so as not to offend the honest idiots (including those who did not recognize the bad troll and were offended by my rude response to his rudeness). Those of us who are particularly smart can't understand why others are so stupid, and must take care not to assume that what is obvious to us is so to others.
P. McG. is an obvious fraud to me, and to you, but might not be to everyone.
Thanks again.
--M. J. Young
To Nalhf and MJY,
Longtime reader, first time commenting. You need to both get off your high horse. To insult the audience of your columns over their questions seems rude. Consider the fact you are constructing ten part articles theorizing about works of fiction. You are probably delving into questions the writers of the works didn't even consider because they were just trying to tell a story to connect with the audience. Where do you get off acting as if people who are asking questions about this topic are in any way stupid? I mean, you are the ones devoting so much of your time into these topics. You are studying timeline possibilities in works of fiction not curing cancer for God's sake.
I enjoyed the articles as they were and if any questions seemed unusual I would just skim them. What turns me off is the personality of the author as he replies in forums posts. So for the record, it wasn't the strange questions being asked but the attitude of the author that has driven me away.
I have to agree with Mike here. Maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems that in your respone to Nalhf you called me an "honest idiot", "stupid" and a "troll" (whatever that is) or possibly all of the above. I'm an idiot because I saw or interpreted something in a movie that you didn't? Well, sir, you are obviously much smarter than I and an all around better person. I hope your superior intellect serves you well and I wish you the best of luck in your sure to be amazingly superior future. Maybe you and your braniac pal Nalhf can hold hands while you skip off into brainy bliss.
Not a Lake House Fan--I'm afraid that Mike's post illustrates the problem rather nicely. I am forced to assume that Mike is a genuine reader genuinely offended by my post concerning the apparent troll we were discussing. I don't know with certainty that he is not "Poopstains McGravy" under another name, having tried to goad me into saying anything which he can claim has offended him as a third party and that he is leaving because I am such a rude person to have responded to his rudeness rudely. Mike seems nice enough, and so does Ken, but it is one of the tricks of trolls to take multiple personalities and trap a writer between them.
If I refuse to answer any comments, I offend the honest posters. If I pick and choose which to answer, I offend those I omit. If I answer all, the trolls bait me. I do what I can to answer all fairly and politely, and accept that what looks like a troll might be an honest poster needing a fair answer. Sometimes I will be wrong.
--M. J. Young
Mike--I also apologize for any offense I caused you. It is evident that "Poopstains McGravy" has been attempting to push me to post something that will make me look bad, and I have been trying to handle him politely. However, it is obvious that his rudeness offended Nalhf, and since you can't please everyone I apparently managed to cross a line in offending you while attempting to explain my position to him. So I guess "Poopstains" (who has elsewhere insisted that I call him that over my objections) has won a round, inciting me to make a comment that offended one of my other readers. Again, I apologize.
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O.K., lots to answer, might take more than one post.
Ken--I apologize for the miscommunication. My conversation with Nalhf concerned someone naming himself "Poopstains McGravy" and posting intentionally provocative nonsense; unless you are claiming to be him, it was not about you. If you are claiming to be him, then changing screen names is typical troll behavior and you should break yourself of the habit to avoid the label. Also, I did not say that anyone was both an "honest idiot" and a "troll", but that someone was either one or the other, and again you were not the subject of that discussion. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
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