The Lake House and Me

My thoughts about the movie The Lake House are very similar to those of Roger Ebert who enjoyed the film and gives it a nice review. My wife and I had been looking forward to seeing this film ever since we say il Mare, the Korean film The Lake House is based on, early last year. We very much enjoyed the film's premise of "writing through time" and any attempt to tell an epistolic tale in the visual medium is a remarkable exercise. We all know letters aren't truly conversational, and in making the letter writing conversational both the Korean and the US film cheat, but it is neat to think of a romance that develops separated by time. The reference in the American version to Jane Austen's Persuasion is apropos.

The only real complaint my wife and I had regarding the American adaptation was the choice of dog they used in the film. The dog in the Korean version was just perfect and had the right balance of cute and vulnerable. Besides that, it reminded Jody and me of our own lost personification of love Oreo.

Which reminds me, the best line in Ebert's review is, "Dogs live outside of time, don't you think?" I would add that in the film's The Lake House and il Mare love exists out of time, and that dogs as personifications of love do as well.