Category: Romance
If you could find yourself talking to a person from the past, would you ask them to change the future? In this movie two people, Kate, a new doctor in Chicago and Alex, an architect returning to Chicago, communicate across time to find each other and themselves. Kate lives in 2006 while Alex is still in 2004. Their connection is a lake house that Kate used to live in and Alex is moving in, according to the narrative timeline. In real time, however, Alex will be moving out so that Kate can move in. An interesting thing about the movie is how the future affect the past. Things Kate mentions is puzzling at first to Alex but becomes clear when it is the result of his actions, she is describing.
One question people ask is, how do they accept what is happening to them, their way of communicating? I think, like most other things people accept, is that they don't think about it, they don't analyze it. It just is. After the initial confusion, they both settle in to the fact that they can communicate and that they like each other's letters. Both of them look forward to putting in the next message. There is a certain romanticism to letters. E-mail is ok but nothing beats putting pen to paper and the ability to take it and read it anywhere.
Like most other things.. it just is
What is it with Sandra Bullock, Chicago and romantic movies? A match made in heaven. The variety of roles that she has been trying in the past movies have almost come full circle. I am talking about the other Chicago movie, While You Were Sleeping. In both movies, she plays someone caught up in a situation that is out of her control but accepts it and makes the best of it. The characters are lonely women, stuck somewhere in their lives and not moving ahead or making more out of it. Like herself since she played Lucy, Sandra's Kate is more mature and has worked hard to get where she is. But like Sandra's Lucy in the other movie, she lacks a real emotional connection with the people around her.That is a theme running in the story. While being a doctor, she learns to be emphatic not sympathize. This disconnection helps her deal with her work but has bled into her everyday life outside the hospital. Alex, on the other hand, knows only too well what disconnection is and the effect it has to the people around. To paraphrase, It is one thing to build a house and another to build a home. Alex's desire for connection leads him to pull Kate out of her box, to make her connect. With him. He is the one who asks her out for a 'walk', how ridiculous it may seem. Or not, considering there are people who go to on-line sites together for a 'date'.
Another theme is about not trying or lack of ambition. This results in settling for less. Both of them are guilty. Alex wanting just to build, settles for being a developer of cookie cutter homes rather than fulfilling his and his brother's dream of opening their own firm. Kate, frustrated in not meeting Alex and at distance of time between her and Alex, settles for someone she tolerates and loves her but is not 'in tune' with her. In the end, both of them decide to go for it. Alex, after being shut out and told to go on 'living his life' by Kate, decides to build the firm "Visionary Vanguard" with his brother. Kate, realizing why she could not meet him, decides to do something, hoping to change the past.
And changing past is what bends the mind in this movie. Kate sees a guy killed in an accident. She is affected by it and it leads her back to the lake house. She looks for peace and finds the ability to correspond with Alex. Later, in her frustration in not meeting Alex, thinking he stood her up, decided to tell Alex what she thought about when trying to save that guy in the accident and the details of the accident. That leads to Alex later remembering Kate's details and her whereabouts that day. Alex tries to go and see her but in the end becomes the guy killed in the accident. Kate much later discovers this and sends him a note asking him to wait and not go see her that fateful day. He doesn't and doesn't get killed. Alex waits 2 years to meet Kate at the lake house. If that confuses you, welcome to the club. If Alex did not meet the accident, Kate would not have gone to the lake house to begin corresponding with Alex. If he did, who is it that comes and sees her at the lake house? Now there is a theory that there many parallel universes, where each is a branch of "the other decision" people make. The "what if I turned left instead of right"? Or "what if we weren't bombed at Pearl harbor, how different the world would be"? But what Kate does cuts across these universes because she lived in a world where Alex died and also Alex lives. But if you had to bend time and merge space time continuum, why not do it for love?
Fall in love with Sandra again as she continues to expand and matures her girl-next-door image into characters that portray (or hint) depth without effort and without having to resort to theatrics. You can see everything in just her eyes when she is told about Alex's death. From sadness to inquisition to determination. Keanu is ok as an every day man with a tortured past (Constantine) or a troubled mind (Neo).
Chicago never looked better. The highlight is the architecture and design which the director both implicitly and subtly impresses on us. Just take a look at the cafeteria chairs. And Sandra in Chicago looks just as good in either this movie or in While You Were Sleeping. Sun shining in one and wintry cold in the other.
Like I said, fall in love with Sandra, fall in love with Chicago or just simple fall in love.
Watch it on a rainy day in.
.
The movie stuck with me for some time. Here is something I wrote on the movie the Lake House.
No comments :
Post a Comment