The Lake House Will Head to Video Very Soon

After branching out in Crash, Sandra Bullock is back in a couples movie, The Lake House, and unfortunately not using her talent. Reunited with Keanu Reeves, Sandra looks great, takes her part well, and makes a dull movie bearable. The previews, as always, look interesting and one enters the movie with the hope that "The Lake House" will provide a different twist on a familiar theme. Sadly, it proves predictable and our two stars cannot save it.

Playing Kate, Sandra Bullock reluctantly moves from a fabulous home on a lake back into Chicago to be near her work at a hospital. As a doctor, her work is all consuming. Other than lunch with her mother and chats with her dog, Kate has no social life. This would be more believable if Sandra Bullock looked dowdy or did not possess that glint of humor in her eye. She is a good actress but cannot suppress that inner glow that makes her likeable, warm, and fun.

Alex, the Keanu Reeves character, is the renegade son. A talented architect who is off on a construction site building condos, he reunites with his brother and his brilliant architect father (played by Christopher Plummer, who seems to be getting all codger roles lately). The stilted dialogue hints at father/son issues and a difficult past. I wish we could care more, but the story line is too predictable.

The supposed heat of the movie is from letters written between Kate and Alex and placed in the lake mailbox. Alex moved in and it turns out it was designed and built by his father back when Alex was a young boy still admiring his father. Alex reflects on the flood of memories from his past. He reads the note written by the "former" tenant (Kate) and slowly realizes there is a time warp occurring. The trick is that Kate is living in the present (2006) and Alex is in the past (2004). Their "relationship" grows through the letters, some quips, some history, and odd coincidences. Their paths crossed and yet the timing was never right to actually be together.

The Lake House lurches along from past to present and back again. You will look at your watch at least once during the film hoping your time will move along. The film is less than two hours, but drags. You want to like the film and you want to care, but there have been better films done with the time/love theme. You figure out long before the characters how they will get together, so any suspense is gone.

I hope Sandra and Keanu pick better films for their next ventures. They are decent actors with a nice presence on the big screen. "The Lake House" could have been a Lifetime movie of the week. Instead it will zoom to video in no time at all.