Romantic movies are very hard to not make insufferable. While there’s definitely been many throughout the years that have won people over through legitimate good writing, directing and characters, and romance itself can be incredibly engaging in any material if handled correctly, they can very easily fall into predictable formulas with annoying actors and awful cheesy writing, even to a point where people view them for the sole purpose of laughing at the badness. Every once and a while, a movie will try to implement a gimmick to the standard formula that can sometimes at least stifle the boredom of a usual generic romance, and the 2006 American fantasy romance, The Lake House is one of those films. Two single adults; a young doctor named Kate Forster (played by Sandra Bullock) and an architect named Alex Wyler (played by Keanu Reeves) begin to exchange to love letters between each other as it appears that they both lived in the same lake house. The letters become more puzzling when its discovered that the two live in two separate time frames, with Wyler existing two years prior to Kate’s time. Starting to fall for the other but unable to physically meet due to literal time separating them, the two try to find ways to connect with each other through various time-breaking situations, which has the potential to get one of them killed. Discovering Alex is meant to die by the time in which Kate is in now, she tries to do what she can to stop this event so that the two can actually be together. For a movie that is only really stands out due to this time-separation element, it honestly handles itself much better than some of its alternatives. Being a remake of the 2000 South Korean film,  Il Mare, directed by Lee Hyun-seung, this film, though having a set-up that could so easily come off as too cheap, stupid or plain silly, takes a direction that is totally watchable. The actors aren’t very good, the writing is pretty bad, and this concept that feels a little otherworldly and abstract in nature being attached to a very stale and predictable film genre isn’t going to draw in people outside of its fan-base, but with competent pacing, some nice visuals, and an overall well-handled premise, it holds itself up just enough.

The premise of the movie, without the cover of mushy-gushy glasses that make people willing to accept anything out of the realms of plausibility for the sake of love, is a little ridiculous. The mere notion of two lovers being held back by living in different periods of time feels like something right out of an artsy crime book or a supernatural thriller. However, for what it is, the movie manages to portray and deliver it in a watchable way that can be not only buyable, but somewhat understandable. Learning that it was based on an idea from Korea gives further context to its direction, as romances in the East often use these time-bending or abnormal ideas for the basis of their romances and still create a feasible narrative and reality out of it, so this must have come from the original source. Sometimes it can get a little jumbled like when they would inexplicably talk to each other without letters, which does somewhat break what they’ve set up for the sake of a plot technique, but aside from that, most of the film understands how to use the concept. The year gap is only roughly two years which keeps it from being awkward and resorting to really outdated tropes (no Kate and Leopold shenanigans here, thankfully) but the movie is smart enough to include creative ways for the characters physically showcase their love in creative ways that are explained away in the film nice enough, so it isn’t just a poetry session the whole time. Despite being his only solo English-language film (and only being his second film in general), director  Alejandro Agresti does his best to work with this idea, and while the meat around it can become a little sour, its still a decent job holding it all together. The film is surprisingly well paced; each moment never lasting to long, each one feels in the right spot, and even by the end, the length doesn’t feel too apparent. When the whole-time gimmick is the only thing holding this movie together, the ability to structure it correctly saved it from becoming to pointlessly meandering and sloppy. The last 20mins actually gives a decent sense of urgency, even if it does cop-out by the end, which proves how despite being a little absurd, you do get sucked into this premise and even buy how it works, which is a complement. Because the film is so laser-focused on committing to this single idea, it results in a lot of the traditional dumb ”rom-com” tropes being mitigated which is very nice, but the flip-side to this dedication is that everything else in this script written by David Auburn is paper-thing and terribly handled, like it had nothing else to use except this one premise and everything else was excess

The characters are also as shallow as the genre they’re attached too and are solely used as Barbie and Ken dolls that people are forcing to kiss. Both the leads have very little plot going on in their individual stories outside of the romance between each other and whatever content is included feels inconsequential and confusing, particularly with Bullock. The acting in this movie is pretty weak, as everybody feels half asleep or to over-the-top and it never feels genuine. Keanu Reeves may have found a niche for himself in certain action flicks and even some comedies, but here his usual flat and lifeless delivery has returned and it just makes for a boring performance. You can tell that he is trying and even by the film’s last third, he actually does a passable job during this later section, you can’t say that it holds up in the long run. Sandra Bullock is actually quite similar to Reeves, being a performer who is great in the right project and when she’s able to use some of her colorful and humorous abilities, but when in a stale projects just feels at best passable and at worst, boring and annoying. Here, she always has the same bored look in every scene that she’s in, even if vocally she sounds fine. Both Reeves and Bullock don’t share that much chemistry together, and when the whole movie banks on that connection, it hurts the film as a whole and makes you question why we should even be rooting for people that don’t seem that strong together. The only reason they put these two on screen together was because of the success of the 1994 thriller-action film, Speed (where they co-starred together), so it already feels like a stunt casting rather than one of genuine merit. Ebon Moss-Bachrach, despite being a pretty decent actor in the right content, proves to be even worse than Keanu here, with terrible delivery and always looking inches away from having a crying fit, even Christopher Plummer goes too over-the-top. The only actor that feels okay is Dylan Walsh, who plays Sandra Bullock’s ex, and it shouldn’t be that the ex has more chemistry with the female lead than the current lover, so that alone in a huge fail.

Though the cinematography for the movie done by Alar Kivilo is nothing above any other romantic movie, sometimes the shots can be played a bit more interesting due to the concept they have. Anytime the camera would show the two characters in the same place, it was effective and made it a lot easier than in the opening third of the movie where they were never on-screen together. It was using its concept and much like some of the romantic gestures, using its visuals to fully stick to this concept and did whatever they wanted that could be both believable and realistic, without going too far into fantasy territory. The lake house is a pretty nice location to spend a movie in, so some of the shots containing the surrounding forest and lake are visually pleasant and even some of the city shots work fine enough. Much like most romantic movies, the writing in this very poor and even incredibly self-righteous. The movie’s attempts at being philosophical about the lengths of time separating loved ones is way too out of this movie’s league especially when it goes on wildly long tangents with metaphors that fail the minute they are uttered. That mixed with horrible exposition, unromantic phrases, boring dialogue and no memorable lines, it weakens the romance and ups the annoyance levels. The movie does thankfully try to focus a lot on the physical elements of building the romance; most of the physical items are given with some significance so when they’re seen, it feels a bit more heartfelt than typical romantic clichés.

The Lake House should be another forgettable romance movie full of repetitive clichés, stale characters, painful writing, and be a messy waste of a viewing experience, but with a stable crew in the background holding it together, its only half of all those things. The premise is obviously the only reason this movie manages to avoid said issues so it can thank the original movie for that safety net, as without it, it could be truly terrible, but with it, its perfectly watchable. It has bad acting, terrible writing, and an overall mixed bag of a story line, but with a good structure, nice enough visuals and actively using its concept effectively, it isn’t the usual mess that’s expected with these movies. While some things are left unresolved like how or why any of it is happening, but this movie doesn’t need to explain that, instead for romance fans or even for fans of the two leads, it’s made for them and therefore will probably be liked by them. Time isn’t a barrier to love, but as demonstrated, romance movies can more than often by a barrier to good writing.

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