Review

Reeves and Bullock are reunited onscreen for the first time since Speed, and prove they still have great chemistry together in this romantic drama with a time travel twist. Reeves plays an architect who moves into a glass-and-steel lake house that his renowned architect father (Plummer) built many years before. He finds a letter in the mailbox from the previous tenant (Bullock), who's just moved to Chicago, who asks that he forward her mail to her. Reeves is baffled, as the condo at the address she's given him hasn't begun construction yet, and there hasn't been a tenant at the lake house for many years. The two slowly begin to realize that while for Reeves it is 2004, Bullock is living in 2006, yet they are able to communicate through letters in the house's mailbox. Love starts to bloom, yet how can this possibly be happening? Sort of You've Got Mail meets Somewhere in Time, The Lake House is best appreciated by hopeless romantics. Science-fiction fans might be drawn to the film because of its fantasy elements, but the filmmakers have thrown any "logic" involving time travel paradoxes out the window. Many of the conceits work beautifully, but think about them for even a minute, and the whole film is nonsensical; in fact, some of the film is downright stupid. But if you can get past that — as we did — you'll find plenty to enjoy here. There are many wonderful sequences; a Saturday walk "together" with Bullock following a map highlighted by Reeves which shows off some of Chicago's most beautiful buildings, a fascinating speech by Plummer to his son about the importance of sunlight in architecture, and an unbroken long take with the two leads talking on a porch while her birthday party continues inside. This last scene culminates in a lovely slow dance, that is as romantic as anything recently at the movies. Yeah, it's hokey at times, and time travel buffs may balk, but despite its logic "flaws", the film is otherwise made with care, and boasts a moving love story at its core, which, in the end, is all that really matters here.

 -- Dean C. Galanis