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Alex just moved into a rundown mostly abandoned lake house that his father built. Shortly after moving in, he receives a letter in the mailbox asking him to forward any mail addressed to Kate to a specific new address. This makes Alex suspicious, because unless there was a squatter he didn’t know about, the house had been unoccupied since he was a child. He even goes to the forwarding address to possibly let this person know that they must be mistaken. When he arrives, he finds that the new building will not be finished for at least a year. His only option is to leave a letter in the mailbox explaining the situation. They correspond back and forth and eventually discover not only are they falling for each other through their letters, but also that Kate lives two years in the future from Alex.

Can love truly transcend time? The creative forces behind this film certainly hope so. Now the concept may seem rather laughable. I mean come on. Are you really telling me that there’s a magical mailbox somewhere (along with a know it all dog that is never fully explained) that can pass letters back and forth through time? It’s easy to be cynical, but it’s actually easier to get caught up in their alternate reality where it is possible. It’s not like we’re going off the “Kate & Leopold” premise of someone finding a portal to 1875 or whatever by jumping of the right spot of the Brooklyn Bridge. That’s ridiculous. This is simple enough to be effective. And they don’t try to explain the powers of the mailbox or try to figure out how it works. After the initial suspicions, they simply accept it and use it accordingly.

Now, their idea of using it accordingly is far different than mine. First, I’d ask her to send some sports scores or lotto numbers back my way so I can get rich pretty quickly. Second, I’d try sending stuff other than mail through there. Let’s test out the capabilities of this teleportation device. If he sends flowers or chocolates from two years ago, would they arrive fresh? What I really wanted to see is a scene where the two finally consummate their relationship at the mailbox. Alex stands right there with his pants around his ankles and then we cut to Kate similarly clothed, straddling the thing. Now that’s a love scene!

Wish list aside, the film does a really good job of utilizing the whole living in two different years thing. Do you remember in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” when they’re outside the police station and say they have to remind themselves to steal the keys and plant them later so they’ll have them at that moment. Then they check and the keys are there? Well, there’s a lot of that kind of thing. Unfortunately, there’s no Alex Winter a/k/a Bill S. Preston, Esq., but you do get several effective situations where you see things that Alex does in the past come to fruition in the future. Vice versa, you also see situations where Kate tells him about things that happened in the past which it turns out he took part. The story is very solid in that respect. Most of the side story talking about Alex’s family wasn’t really necessary, though.

The first ending is kind of weak and predictable, but would have made sense. However, they take it a couple steps further and completely flip the whole space-time continuum thing upside down on us with the epilogue. The end result just can’t possibly make sense, even within this fictionalized reality. It felt a little cheap, but I can’t say it was unexpected. How good the movie is as a whole, however, was. Aside from a few minor issues and the fact that Keanu Reeves (Alex) seemed extremely uncomfortable in his construction worker role, “The Lake House” is actually worth visiting.

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