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The Lake House

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The Lake House (2006)

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Reviews Counted:8

Fresh:5

Rotten:3

Average Rating:5.5/10

Consensus: The plot of The Lake House is a little too convoluted, and the film fails to pull off the sweeping romance it aims for.

Rated: PG [See Full Rating] for some language and a disturbing image

Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:23-06-2006

Synopsis: Feeling that it's time for a change in her life, Dr. Kate Forster (SANDRA BULLOCK) leaves the suburban Illinois locale where she completed her residency and takes a job at a busy Chicago hospital. ... Feeling that it's time for a change in her life, Dr. Kate Forster (SANDRA BULLOCK) leaves the suburban Illinois locale where she completed her residency and takes a job at a busy Chicago hospital. One thing she is reluctant to leave behind is the uniquely beautiful house she's been renting - a spacious and artfully designed refuge with large windows that overlook a placid lake. It's a place in which she felt her true self. It is a winter morning in 2006. On her way to the city, Kate leaves a note in the mailbox for house's next tenant, asking him to forward her mail and noting that the inexplicable painted paw prints he might notice by the front door were there when she moved in. But when the next tenant arrives, he sees a much different picture. Alex Wyler (KEANU REEVES), a talented but frustrated architect working at a nearby construction site, finds the lake house badly neglected: dusty, dirty and overgrown with weeds. And no sign of paw prints anywhere. The house has special meaning for Alex. In a happier time it was built by his estranged father (CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER), a renowned architect who allowed his professional acclaim to grow at the expense of his family life. Alex feels a sense of peace here now and commits to restoring the property to its original beauty. He disregards Kate's note until, days later, while painting the weather-beaten jetty he sees a stray dog run across the fresh paint and then towards the entrance of the house, leaving paw prints exactly where she said they'd be. Baffled, Alex writes back, saying that the house had no occupant before him and wondering how she could have known about the dog; while Kate, who just left it a week ago, imagines he is playing some kind of joke on her and fires back a reply. Just for argument's sake, what day is it there? April 14, 2004. No, she says. It's April 14, 2006. The same day, two years apart. Can this be happening? As Kate and Alex continue to correspond through the lake house's mailbox they confirm that they are, incredibly, impossibly, living two years apart, and each at a time in their lives when they are struggling with past disappointments and trying to make a new start. Sharing this unusual bond, they reveal more of themselves to one another with each passing week - their secrets, their doubts and dreams, until they find themselves falling in love. Determined to bridge the distance between them at last and unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary connection, they tempt fate by arranging to meet. But, by trying to join their two separate worlds, they could risk losing each other forever. --© Warner Bros. [More]

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Christopher Plummer

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Christopher Plummer, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Dylan Walsh

Director: Alejandro Agresti

Director: Alejandro Agresti
Screenwriter: David Auburn
Producer: Sonny Mallhi, Dana Goldberg, Doug Davison
Composer: Rachel Portman
Studio: Warner Bros.

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Reviews for The Lake House

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1 - 8 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Bullock holds her half of the movie up well, proving that she can do subdued just as well as sunny.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
07/01/06
Matthew Leyland
Matthew Leyland
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The Lake House demands a serious suspension of disbelief, but if you accept it as a romantic bit of nonsense, it has its pleasures.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Anna Smith
Anna Smith
Time Out
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A compelling idea delicately handled and neatly played, especially by Bullock. It just lacks the emotional directness to turn the good into the great.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
06/24/06
Ian Freer
Ian Freer
Empire Magazine
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Enough of the plot and its paradoxes. What I respond to in the movie is its fundamental romantic impulse. It makes us hope these two people will somehow meet.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
06/16/06
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
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A chronological brain-teaser confounding enough to keep you busy trying to figure out whether those holes are in the story or in your logic.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
06/15/06
Carina Chocano
Carina Chocano
Los Angeles Times
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There is still chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, but a heavy dose of Hollywood metaphysics keeps them apart for most of this wondrously illogical time-travel romance.

comment Comment
06/15/06
A.O. Scott
A.O. Scott
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

[The Lake House is] for profundity through multiple story levels that aren't fully realized.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
06/12/06
Robert Koehler
Robert Koehler
Variety
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More a valentine to Chicago's architecture than the aching love story it purports to be, The Lake House is a slow-moving, never-igniting tale of calendar-crossed lovers that grows less convincing as it proceeds.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment 1 Comment
06/12/06
Sheri Linden
Sheri Linden
Hollywood Reporter
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1 - 8 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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