Best Keanu: “She was more real to me than anything I’ve ever known. I saw her, I kissed her, I love her, and now she’s gone.”

Let’s talk about what The Lake House is not doing: trying to make any grand pronouncements, or ask any deep questions about fate or destiny or how we exist in space and time. The logic of this movie, the fact that Alex and Kate are occupying the same space — more or less — two years apart is nothing more than a unique plot device. It leaves the characters in this situation where they begin to communicate through writing, and as their relationship deepens, they can’t — or it is very difficult — for them to see each other in the flesh. Meeting becomes a consideration, but because of its impossibility, never preoccupies them.

So what they’re left with is this space where they can experience each other only through words. Their circumstances offer a bit of curiosity, a bit of mystery, but they go with it — they never wonder if they’ve gone crazy or if someone is playing some kind of cruel joke. That, as a viewer of the film, offers a kind of appeal. How often do we just let the strange mysteries of life simply play out, even if they seem fantastical, and especially when they offer sweetness, kindness, novelty, and eventually, deep care and love?

The Lake House was critically panned in 2006. It seems audiences didn’t particularly respond to it either. Like with The Matrix, I can vaguely remember seeing it in the theatre and was perhaps bored, expecting it to offer something more interesting along the lines of fate-and-destiny and existing-in-shifted-times. But rewatching it, I see that’s not the point — and for me, the actual point of The Lake House struck a much deeper, and more meaningful, chord.

Much of 2022 for me so far has been mining the past, examining memories. Among those memories is a relationship I had with someone, more than two decades ago, through writing and phone calls. The memories were only pieces until I began to go into them, by reading old journals and allowing my mind to stray back there. Over the past several weeks, “there,” in some ways has become “here.” Discovering in 2022 that the emotions I experienced with this person were indeed not only shared, but long-lasting, has been a source of deep comfort. It was indeed an experience of something very special, and very different than what one might experience through those tropes of dating — dinners out, cuddling while watching a movie. Even now, writing about it in general terms on this website that no one will ever read, I feel like I’m exposing something very private, not only for me but for them — my beautiful partner in that experience.

So the cycle of the relationship in The Lake House felt very real to me. It also showed how hard it is, in life, to find real intimacy and connection. It’s not so much that Alex and Kate share a deeper love despite not seeing each other and existing in each other’s space — it’s because they don’t see each other and exist in each other’s space. It is the reality of daily life, the clutter that’s provided by practical details, family complications, responsibilities, and errands, that creates a barrier between us and intimacy. When that clutter is removed, intimacy is much easier to access. It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful, it’s intoxicating, it’s love — and it’s real. But whether it exists in its purest form when people share space is another question. Sometimes, it’s just best left to be suspended, devoid of the clutter, until the clutter seeps in, expands its influence, and demands you can’t reenter that private space of intimacy again, or anymore.

The surprise in The Lake House, perhaps at least for 2006 audiences, may have been how little time Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock share on-screen. By my count, they have exactly two scenes together. So if people came to the theatre looking for a culmination of the Speed chemistry, this was not it. But in the one scene where they dance, you can see the chemistry they share. They should do it again. It’s lovely to watch, the physical demonstration of intimacy, of privacy, a peek into what we all long for, in some form or another.

March 2022