The Lake House

My wife and I settled down on the couch last night and plopped in The Lake House starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Allow me to preface this review by stating that I am a sucker for time travel romance films... Somewhere in Time is one of my all-time favorite films, and you can add such chestnuts as Kate & Leopold and The Butterfly Effect.

Yahoo! Movies describes the movie like this: An independent-minded doctor (Sandra Bullock) who once occupied an unusual lakeside home begins exchanging love letters with its newest resident, a frustrated architect (Keanu Reeves). When they discover that they're actually living two years apart, they must try to unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary romance before it's too late.

I truly enjoyed this film. I thought both stars brought their A game and made each character come to life. The Lake House did suffer from many of the same problems that most time travel stories do: the paradox. It's something you learn to swallow as a caveat of the genre. The movie maintains an emotional resonance, even when temporal physics is on the verge of splitting at the seams. There's not a lot in here to keep the average man interested... no action, nothing going boom... but overall? The Lake House is smart and compelling and deserves 3 out of 5 stars.

Spoiler Warning for those who have not seen the movie:

Where the movie lost me, costing it 2 stars was the ending. This movie fell short of the home run by not following through with their swing. A nice, sweet, and contrived ending left me feeling cheated... when the perfect pitch was hanging there waiting to be knocked out of the park.

Let Keanu die!!!

There I said it. Hammer home the tragedy... then, if you must, pull a Somewhere in Time and kill off Bullock as well and allow their spirits to meet at last in the afterlife. Don't sugar coat it for me.Hey, we're all big kids, okay. We can take it. You had me on the verge of tears and then dried them up quicker than you can say "tacked on happy ending".

I liked the movie. I liked the movie a lot.

If the filmmakers would have had some guts I could've loved it.