Contradicting Popular Opinion :
An Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks
Intro
It is another day, another improbable rom-com (romantic comedy) here at CPO. Now, I don’t want it to be thought that Contradicting Popular Opinion is flatly against the improbable rom-com. Sure, our maiden column was about Eternal Sunshine, but we here at CPO do support some flicks of the genre. We stand behind Shawn of the Dead a zom-rom-com. We appreciate Sliding Doors as Gwyneth Paltrow’s most tolerable flick. We stand amazed at Groundhog Day in both its ability to define the public perception of what Bill Murray should be, and mitigating that quality in Andie McDowell that makes me want to hit her in the cunt with a field hockey stick.
But then, there is The Lake House.
The Lake House
This film was a bit divisive amongst the Kennedy clan. My wife thought that The Lake House was the poor man’s Time Traveler’s Wife (right down to the Chicago setting), whereas I saw it as the crappier rom-com version of Frequency (a magical HAM radio is way cooler than a magical mailbox).
Anyways, Speed 3: The Lake House picks up right where Speed left off, wisely ignoring Speed 2. This time, Jack Traven is undercover as an architect in Chicago, when he is caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a billionaire industrialist (Gary Busey), who mercilessly taunts our hero with lines like, “Now, now, officer Traven, we mustn’t act impetuously if we want this caravan of nuns to live.”
At least, that is how I pictured it in my head. First movie, Dennis Hopper; second movie, Willem Dafoe; third movie, Gary Busey; fourth movie, John Lithgowe? Maybe Jeremy Irons fits in there somewhere too.
The real Lake House is about the love between Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves being separated by two years. Lemme see if I can make sense of this thing. Sandra Bullock moves out of her house in 2006, and leaves a letter in the mailbox for the next residents. Keanu Reeves moves into the house in 2004 and gets that letter. Through a series of contrivances that would make Abbott and Costello blush, they have correspondence for about 2 hours of movie time, and then get together at the end of the flick, Valentine’s day 2008.
During that time, Keanu tends to his ailing father, Baron Von Trapp, and resists all urges to sing in the Austrian countryside. Keanu also has a brother who looks disturbingly like k.d. lang to me. Country singing lesbians aside, Keanu doesn’t seem to have much in the way of friends, hobbies, personality or acting ability, (but I did hear that he learned to read specifically for this role). He seems remarkably uninterested in figuring out how his magic mailbox works. He also seems to lack the foresight to ask for stock tips, sporting scores, or “really advance” copies of dvds. As the fella says, “I’d be working that shit, yo.”
Sandra Bullock spends most of her time in Keanu’s not too distant future as an overworked Chicago doctor. She too lacks personality, hobbies and friends, barring her vaguely foreign mother and her medical mentor, the Woman of Sand and Fog. Damn that woman has a sexy voice. She’s old, but damn that is one sexy voice. Despite having all of the technological advantages of 2006 (a.k.a. THE FUTURE), she never bothers to do so much as Google Keanu’s character, dial directory assistance, or double check to see if he has already died in her own arms.
Well, she is very busy.
The whole movie appears as though it were made by people who have, in the past, appreciated good art and are under some delusion that they can themselves manufacture it. The movie is constantly beating us over the head with Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Hitchcock’s Notorious. It is almost like watching a non-over wrestler attach himself to the hip of an over wrestler for the proverbial rub. That is to say, The Lake House is Buff Bagwell.
(All right, I look up the screenwriter. Hmm… The guy behind the American version of the script is David Auburn. David Auburn has won all sorts of fancy awards for Proof, and is a fellow U of C alum. I think I might have met him a little over 5 years ago. Huh.)
As usual, many of my problems come with the continuity and science of the beast. The Lake House lacks consistency and imagination in how its time travel works. Sandra Bullock only got to live in the lake house because of her future letters. A box containing the couple’s correspondence is present in the lake house when Bullock moves out. Keanu and Bullock have made out at a party in Bullock’s past before it becomes Keanu’s present. So the effects of the letters should be set, as they occur in Sandra Bullock’s past, right?
Well, no.
Half of the time this thing is true: the other half, not so much. Keanu plants a tree outside of Bullock’s apartment in his present, and the tree pops into existence in Bullocks present a la subdued Butterfly Effect special effects. She is able to save Keanu’s life only because she found out about his death.
It is a remake of a Korean film. Maybe they are more forgiving of such things. The whole thing makes my head hurt with weird paradoxes. I think the creators of The Lake House would benefit from a close reading of that issue of “Superman” where Superman saves Abraham Lincoln from assassination. The writers of Superman realized that Superman’s time-traveling adventures would create paradoxes and that the universe thus required parallel earths in order to maintain the integrity of space-time.
If that made sense to you, you too are a dork!
While I mention such things as a lack of logic and consistency, I might add that it is a troublesome daily commute from Lake Michigan to Madison.
And that I don’t think that the Metra goes all the way to Madison.
And that tree Keanu plants grows a whole freaking lot for only 2 years time.
And the geography of the glass lake house doesn’t permit both the attic and the flat roof.
And the candles in front of Sandra Bullock in the fancy restaurant don’t seem to burn off any wax even after hours of waiting.
And Jack’s paw prints magically disappear from one scene to the next.
And why is the dog magical again?
Yeah, Keanu and Bullock share a dog that might just be unstuck in time and desperately want them to get together, sort of a Pongo/Perdita-slash-Billy Pilgrim character.
But really the most annoying thing is the exchange of letters. It’s painful enough to listen to Keanu do voice-over work, but what is strikingly fatuous is the content of the exchanges themselves. The letters are written as an ongoing conversation. As if each party were standing by the mailbox and dropping in post-its in some form of alchemical version of ICQ. Worse still, is that they seem at time to cut one another off mid-sentence. Do the film-makers not understand written communication? You can’t cut somebody off mid-sentence in snail mail. It does not work.
And maybe it is just me, but does anybody else wonder how the rest of Keanu’s mail works? Is he always 2 years late on his electric bill? Does he get Victoria’s Secret catalogues of the future? How does that work?
It should also be noted that the film does have an interesting picture of male/female relations, even though the script is freakishly prude-y. You see, Keanu has to wait forever for Sandra Bullock. For Bullock, it is instant gratification. Keanu has to dick around with his thumb up his ass for four years, staying faithful to a woman he has barely met, whereas Sandra Bullock spends virtually no time uncoupled. Their relationship is similarly one-sided. Sandra Bullock has Keanu do all sorts of dirty work for her. He has to find her lost book. He has to go make reservations to a restaurant 2 years in advance. He plants her a tree, he gives her a guided tour of Chicago. He spends all of his time designing houses for her. Bullock on the other hand, well, she gives Keanu a scarf, and a book slightly before its release date. Yeah that’s better than the lotto numbers. Fuck, he would’ve been comped a copy of his father’s book anyway. She didn’t even put any naked Polaroids in the magic mailbox. What a lameass future girlfriend.
Can’t you see how that relationship will be doomed, too? Keanu has been thinking about Bullock for 4 years before they get together properly. That’s a lot of build up for what I imagine will be lousy sex. It’ll be a huge letdown. Bullock will spend all of her time at the hospital, they’ll never get to see each other. Of course, he won’t want to confront her, because she will always pull out the old “I saved you life” trump. He’ll stick with it to make his 4 years of waiting seem like something other than a waste of time. Eventually, (I say after 11 months) she’ll give Keanu the old, “let’s just be friends” brush off. She won’t even give him her number, saying, “I like it better when you write me.”
That cold hearted medical practitioner-bitch!
