Review of The Lake House (2006) by Markb. — 29 Jun 2006

If you were one of the millions and millions of moviegoers who fell in love with both Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in 1994's slam-bang Speed (the movie that made Sandy a star in the first place), and you weren't adequately chastized for doing so by suffereing through the inept, Keanu-free Speed 2: Cruise Control 3 years later, this impossibly drippy, artificial, molasses-slow romantic reteaming will pretty much finish the job.

Bullock and Reeves play star- and time-crossed potential lovers who share both the title dream home and a chess-playing dog (who, even in a film whose supporting cast boasts Christopher Plummer and Shohreh Agdashloo, is its liveliset performer by far).

[***SPOILERS***] The catch is that, since he lived there in 2004 and she in the present, they can only communicate with one another by letters left in the house's magical mailbox, a gimmick that might have resulted in something remotely believable and affecting were the movie made in 1945, but it's ridiculously naive and unbelievable today, even by fantasy standards: he's an architect/ builder and she's a doctor, for the love of Pete! Have they never heard of cell phones, text messaging or e-mail?!? (Heck, I would've settled for a guest appearance by another Warner Bros.

movie star...Harry Potter's postal owl Hedwig!) The fact that I was so quickly able to figure out early on WHY 2004 Guy and 2006 Gal were perpetually unable to get together and consummate their epistles in person (the tip-off for me was something that director Alejandro Agresti DIDN'T do in a key early scene) is no crime; the fact that these two don't write or speak English like any human being I've ever known is a major felony.

(Even allowing that films that mostly consist of characters writing to one another are for obvious reasons difficult to pull off, and understandably aren't attempted very often doesn't make the task impossible; ever see the poignant 1987 Anne Bancroft/ Anthony Hopkins drama 84 Charing Cross Road?) Reeves is at his wooden worst; Bullock is acceptable but stuck with an impossibly glum role that totally and irresponsibly wastes her sparkling personality and luminous smile; I would have happily dashed off a $100.

check to a charity of anyone's choice if once, just once, Bullock had broken into one of her trademarked Miss Congeniality giggle-snorts. (And anyway, why is it that an actress this attractive, who can grab almost any man she wants, keeps getting cast in lonely-wallflower roles such as While You Were Sleeping, The Net, Murder by Numbers and this?) I have a greater tolerance level in general for romantic dramas than most people of my gender; 2004's surprise summer smash The Notebook (which this obviously and desperately wants to be the 2006 equivalent of) wasn't one of my favorites, but compared to this, it's Casablanca.

A genuinely lovely Paul McCartney soundtrack song to the contrary, The Lake House is exactly the kind of movie that if Everybody Loves Raymond's Debra Barone dragged hubby Ray off to, Ray would insist on three of HIS movie choices plus ten golf games and two bedroom adventures that he's a lot more interested in pursuing than she is as a tradeoff.

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