Kate is a doctor who has to leave the lake house she had been living in-literally a house on a lake; it sits on a couple of stilts-when she finds work in a Chicago hospital. She leaves with a heavy heart, because in the lake house, she finds an inner sense of peace she hadn't found elsewhere. But work beckons, and for Kate, work occupies her otherwise empty life. Alex, on the other hand, is an architect who is looking for grounding after distancing himself from his world-famous architect father, who had focused on his career so much that he had managed to push his wife and children away. Alex buys the lake house his father built many years ago, and finds satisfaction in fixing it, even as it brings him many sad childhood memories.
What would have otherwise been just your average romantic film carries the added conflict that Kate lives in 2006 and Alex lives in 2004. And how did it happen that they managed to contact each other? For once, this American version of a South Korean film ("Il Mare," 2000) doesn't succumb to the pressure to tell audiences exactly how, as many American remakes of magic realist films are wont to do. No aurora borealis here, no lightning, no magic dust, no scientific explanations. Just a beautiful house on a lake, a ratty old mailbox, and a wiry-haired dog.
After a car accident victim dies despite Kate's best efforts to save him, she is deeply disturbed by the incident and a doctor friend advices her to go back to the still unoccupied lake house. She does, and she checks the mailbox because she had left a sort of welcome letter there for the next tenant. Instead of getting her letter, she finds Alex's reply-from 2004. Thus their correspondence and their love story begin, and it doesn't take long for them to realize that they are separated by time.
The beauty in this film is its pace, its setting, and its scenes all reflect the spirit of waiting. It even mentions Jane Austen's "Persuasion", Kate's favorite novel, which celebrates the virtue of waiting. Kate and Alex have to do plenty of waiting in between letters-although the film presents the exchange in scenes that make them appear as if they are really conversing intimately. When they decide to meet, Alex makes a reservation at a popular restaurant, Il Mare, for two years later. When Alex doesn't show at the restaurant, Kate patiently waits for him for hours, in case he would come.
The film has its flaws (the first twenty minutes is a bit dragging, the time lines are confusing, the twist-in-the-end is disappointingly obvious in the first half of the film), but I can ignore the flaws when weighed against the film's merits. It has one of the most memorable moments in recent romantic film history: where Alex and a clueless Kate kiss as they dance to Paul McCartney's "This Never Happened Before." And let's not even go into that song, which should be a staple of couple's preferred soundtracks for a long while.
It is also arguably Keanu Reeve's most romantic character to date-his thoughtful surprises for Kate are reminiscent of "Sweet November" but has more sweetness into it because of the aspect of waiting: he plants a tree, he paints a message, he hides a book between floor boards-all only with the slim hope of Kate being able to get it two years later. That he is faithful and full of faith even when Kate turns practical on him brings back the Keanu as romantic hero that his fans have sorely missed.
What I love best about this film is that it revives the virtue of waiting for love and gives it modern relevance. We're all so used to instant gratification nowadays that we show disdain for waiting, even if it means compromising what we truly want. Kate made the same mistake, though she was able to realize it in time. Alex, on the other hand, stayed true to that something that, in Sir Paul McCartney's words, has never happened (to him) before.
As Carlo Carretto, one of the great spiritual writers says, "Learn to wait-wait- wait for your God, wait for love, be patient with everything. Everything that is worthwhile must be waited for!"
Email your comments to alricardo@yahoo.com