The Lake House (Screen Daily Review - Il Mare remake)

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The Lake House

Tim Grierson in Los Angeles 12 June 2006 04:00

Dir: Alejandro Agresti. US. 2006. 108mins.

Catering faithfully to its core audience, The Lake House is a grownup romantic drama with high-gloss production values and a reliably tear-jerking storyline. Its sophisticated air and fairy-tale manner will play perfectly with adult women who won't quibble about the mediocre performances and glaring logic problems.

This remake of the 2000 South Korean film Il Mare, opening June 16 in the US before expanding into international territories, is that rare mainstream summer film aimed squarely at women and should therefore face little competition. With popular stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock attracting the older date crowd, Warner Bros. would love to match the success of another counter-programming summer romance, 2004's The Notebook, which grossed $81m domestically. Foreign territories also look promising, considering that Reeves' last two romantic dramas (Something's Gotta Give and Sweet November) both performed better internationally than at home. Ancillary markets should deliver solid results as well.

Harried, lonely Dr Kate Forster (Bullock) begins corresponding by mail with architect Alex Wyler (Reeves), the new tenant of her old residence, a beautiful Chicago lake house. But soon they are shocked to discover that they are separated by time – Wyler is sending his letters from 2004 while she lives in the present day. This fantastical situation grows complicated as they fall in love despite having no way of physically connecting.

In his Hollywood debut, Argentinean director Alejandro Agresti (Valentin) approaches this romantic fantasy in a realistic manner, examining the inherent difficulties in the couple's temporal distance. Aided by Rachel Portman's sombre score and Alar Kivilo's rich cinematography, Agresti lushly captures the isolation of upper-class urban life where careers and cynicism take the place of love and contentment.

But while the production confidently maintains an aura of mature sophistication – Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Auburn (Proof) peppers his screenplay with literary references and monologues about architectural theories – The Lake House's serious style both mutes the film's potentially magical elements and heightens the absurdity of the narrative's conceit.

That muting is strongly felt in the lead performances. Reunited for the first time since the action film Speed, Reeves and Bullock exhibit an empathetic wistfulness, but Agresti wraps the proceedings so tightly in tastefulness that his lovers fail to kindle sufficient romantic sparks.

However, the story's wobbly "parallel time frames" gimmick is even more problematic. Because Alex is trapped back in 2004, his only hope of seeing Kate is to get in contact with her in his time period, which he does several times. But The Lake House never bothers to explain how Alex is able to interact with Kate's 2004 existence without affecting her present-day reality.

By playing so fast and loose with logic, the film fails to establish any sort of ground rules for its fantasy elements. (Indeed, the film's weepy finale depends entirely on a twist that defies the rules of space and time.) While Argesti envisions The Lake House as an intelligent romance for cultivated adults, his narrative strains credibility, forcing his audience to blindly dismiss the logic problems as part of the film's magical, romantic tone. Those simply looking for a happy ending and a good cry probably won't have any trouble with that proposition, but the discriminating viewer will notice that this particular house is very pretty on the outside but empty inside.

Production companies
Vertigo Entertainment, Warner Bros, Village Roadshow Pictures

US distribution
Warner Bros

International Distribution
Warner Bros, Village Roadshow

Executive producers
Mary McLaglen, Erwin Stoff, Dana Goldberg, Bruce Berman

Producers
Doug Davison, Roy Lee

Co-Producer
Sonny Mallhi

Screenplay
David Auburn, based on the motion picture Il Mare produced by Sidus

Cinematography
Alar Kivilo

Editor
Lynzee Klingman, Alejandro Brodersohn

Production design
Nathan Crowley

Music
Rachel Portman

Main cast
Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dylan Walsh, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Christopher Plummer