FILMS… The Lake House (2006)

#2000s #AllPosts

 

My treasure, her guilty pleasure…

 

A woman who once lived in a lake house corresponds with its new resident. But he lived there two years before.

 

Sandra Bullock

Keanu Reeves and Christopher Plummer

The Lake House – Trailer, Warner Movies On Demand

 

Thoughts All Sorts shared her guilty pleasure with me, The Lake House (2006) and it’s a Realweegiemidget favourite weeper from way back. Once seen, but brought on tears even with just the trailer. It’s another film with Keanu Reeves, who I’d like to point out is not just a guilty pleasure, thanks to the John Wick franchise.  Here he is a romance. And a Sandra Bullock and Christopher Plummer film too.

I confess I’ve never watched Reeves and Bullock act together before this one, having ignored Speed (1994) when it came out at the box office.  After hearing the Speed plot, I believed it was a by the numbers action movie. At the time, I preferred the idea as seen in the excellent comedy series Father Ted (1995-98) which kinda parodied this film shortly after. And as you know I am a bit of a sucker for anything starring Christopher Plummer.

I did however go and see The Lake House at the cinema, in my hopeful romantic days. With these days over, I thought I’d be immune to the charms of the dishy doc from Somethings Gotta Give (2003) and first person shooter,  John Wick (2014).  And as my beloved Christopher Plummer might be in it, I settled down to watch the trailer.

 

About the plot…

The plot tells of Kate (Sandra Bullock) and Alex (Keanu Reeves) who both lived in the same house – the lake house – but exactly two years apart. As Kate moves out of the lake house she leaves a note for the new tenant in the house’s mailbox. Alex gets her letter and the pair start to correspond with each other. Kate mentions some paw prints on the floor and says they were there when she took over the house.

He however is confused as the house was derelict when he took over the house and is more bewildered when his dog leaves paw prints in the same place Kate mentioned. He writes to her asking about these. On Valentine’s Day 2006, she sees an accident and afterwards, she is shaken and visits the lake house. On finding his letter she writes back. Over their continued correspondence via the postal box, the pair share experiences and they fall in love and arrange to meet in 2007. But he stands her up, so the pair believe they will never meet…

 

About the trailer…

It was lovely to revisit this romantic movie. The trailer is exclusively all about the two leads, with sadly not even a hint of Plummer. The story starts with Kate narrating as she talks about how she feels at the lake house. We then meet Alex as he talks animatedly about his new house, a house on a lake. Thus we know intuitively the pair talking about the same house. And bloody lovely it is too, although it looks like a greenhouse and apparently has never had curtains.

Kate on moving out of the lake house writes to the next tenant, a letter that is duly read by Alex as he moves in. They correspond with each other. And then the pair then realise – as Keanu Alex does the maths – they are exactly two years apart. So, she tells him of events about to happen.  She talks about the impending freaky weather about to descend on him.

But not the more important historical events which he could have tried to stop, and thus alter history so your cynical partner will switch off about now. And Alex just misses meeting her on a number of occasions being the stalker guy he is. There are nifty leading questions presented in inviting font over the first part of the trailer, such as “What if you found… the one you were meant for…”.

And then we go full tilt romance as the trailer adds rom-com inspiring music and that masterful trailer voice narrates the plot “From Warner Brothers Pictures” and “comes a love… without limits” and “a place that reaches across time…”. This along with the lead actors looking pensive, romantic and in love. This intercut with scenes from the movie, of the pair reading each other’s letters and even more scenes of the pair reading each other’s letters.

These intercut with scenes that I remembered and loved, tell me, how many men have grown you a tree before you met them (sorry just assuming your cynical partner is male). A tree! And Keanu in tears, and her in tears.. the wee souls. The combination of all this puts me you on the verge of tears. So I you’ll look frantically through that movie streaming station to see the whole movie. But it’s just because Christopher Plummer is definitely in it…

 

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