Starring: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Christopher Plummer
Director: Alejandro Agresti
Category: I
In one of The Lake House's key moments, Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock) and Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves) dance in the garden at a party. It's 2004, and the song is Paul McCartney's This Never Happened Before. It shouldn't have happened then, either - the song wasn't released until the next year.
Ordinarily, this would be a minor oversight. But in a movie that revolves around time-travelling, it's one of many baffling moments. Such films always run the risk of flawed internal logic - and The Lake House, with its framework adapted from Korean movie Il Mare, certainly ranks high when it comes to absurdities.
Initially, David Auburn's plaintive screen-play and Alar Kivilo's cinematography manage to distract viewers from worrying how people living two years apart (Wyler in 2004, Forster in 2006) can communicate via a magical mailbox outside the house where they each stay. But the more the film builds towards a trademark Hollywood finale, the more glaring its logical faux pas becomes. Which is a pity, because The Lake House does begin promisingly.