The Lake House -- 2006 -- PG

Well, this was the next movie on my wife's Netflix list, but this time, I wanted to see it. The previews looked a bit wild, so it drew me in. What I got was a pretty well-constructed fantasy romance.

We start out with a woman who is a doctor leaving the title house and moving to Chicago. Her departure is immediately followed by the arrival of a guy who is an architect and in the mailbox is a letter from the woman. It's pretty basic stuff about the house, but nothing she says matches what he finds in the house, and to top that off, he writes back to her telling her he doesn't know who she is since no one has lived in the house in years.

What we very quickly learn (and it's in all the previews) is that these people live two years apart and they are only connected through this mailbox in front of the house that will pass letters through in real time with a two year lapse. It's actually a very interesting concept, and plays out fairly well throughout the course of the story. It allows for a solid connection between these two people and fills out their characters well.

One pressing question throughout the film is why the architect doesn't just show up and see her. After all, he has already experienced everything she is going to, so what's the hold up, right? I have my half-baked theories throughout and this point is throughly clarified without a doubt in a climactic ending. The pacing occasionally slows, but not to the point of distraction. The film does commit a rather paradoxical continuity error as well, but based on the fantasy already created, it's forgivable. Also to make the story work, it glazes over a few things that seem a little obvious that our hero might have done, but perhaps he understand the paradox it would have created...

This is a cool little fantasy romance that is quite a bit different from your standard chick flick fare. While the why is never explained, it really doesn't need to be. It's one of those things that's just an enigma in the world...a mailbox that allows two people to connect over a two year span.