Why ‘The Lake House’ Is Completely Unrealistic
June 19th, 2006
Welcome to Part One of WFME’s Realism in Hollywood featurette.
Today we’ll be discussing this weekend’s brand new film The Lake House starring Keanu Reeves and America’s Sweetheart Sandra Bullock — a film about a woman and a man who exist in different time periods (he, in 2004 and her, in 2006) and how the two of them communicate through, yes you guessed it, a magical mailbox.
Excuse me? A magical mailbox?
I have lived in a variety of places over the course of my life. From big houses on Long Island in New York as a child to apartments in Los Angeles and (now) houses in the L.A. area. In each and every place that I’ve lived, we’ve had a mailbox. In my childhood home, it was a great woody looking mailbox with the little red flag that you would flip up to let the mailman know there was mail (much like in the movie The Lake House) and when I moved to Los Angeles I had one of those cubby-hole mailboxes that are more like P.O. boxes. And you should know, that you don’t flip up any red flag to let the mailman know you have mail when you’ve got one of those P.O. boxes — you just put your outgoing mail into a slot that’s specifically for an outgoing mail P.O. box.
Anyway, I digress.
Never before while I lived in any of those previous (or current) homes/apartments did I ever stop to really look at the flippy-red “there’s mail in here that needs to be sent out” notifier. In fact, even if I had put up the little red flag (like Keanu does in the movie) and then saw it fall back down (which Keanu sees in the movie, which then leads him to go back and look in the mailbox and which causes him to find mail from the future from Sandra Bullock) — I’d just put the red flag right back up.
And therein lies the fact as to why The Lake House has got to be one of the most completely unrealistic movies to ever come out in the last 50 years.
If you put mail in your mailbox, flipped up the red flag, then a second after you did so the red flag fell back down, what would you do? You would go right back there, put the red flag up….and that would be it. And if the red flag kept falling back down you’d go into your garage (like me) and get some twine. You’d take that twine and tie the red flag so it stayed up. And if you didn’t have twine, you’d get an old paper towel and a marker, write a note that said “there’s new mail in this mailbox” and hope your mailman could figure out the rest.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of you are saying, “sure, but what if you eventually opened the mailbox, which you would, and you saw a letter from someone from the future, wouldn’t you then start writing back and forth?”
No.
If I found a letter in my mailbox asking me to forward any mail to some random person two years in the future, I would throw away the letter assuming it was a prank. I would throw it away with all the other crap mail I get in my mailbox that pretends to be real. You know, the official looking letters that have “supposedly” handwritten my name and address on the front? Or the ones that are stamped PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL and then it’s just another mortgage company wanting to get my business? Or the ones that have a fake Post-It note stamped on the front of it but it’s not really even a Post-It at all?
In the garbage. Right alongside the letter from the women in the future.
Now, don’t get me wrong. If The Lake House took place in the 50’s — then maybe I’d buy into the whole red flag letter from the future openness that Keanu has in this film. But for a movie set in 2004/2006? Puh-leeze. No person in his right mind would ever do what Keanu did especially in relation this whole mailbox rigamarole.
The Postal Service is not magic. Neither is mail.
Now people always say to me that if you’re going to criticize something and you don’t have any advice on how to improve it, you’re just a ranting idiot without any real value to your opinion anyway. Well, thankfully for you, I do have a much better solution. A solution that would turn The Lake House into a fully realistic story that would have you on the edge of your seat, buying into the reality of it all. And I can sum up my one huge story-change in three words:
Time travelling postman.
You’re already with me, aren’t you? What if Keanu walked out his door one morning and witnessed a huge flash of light (much like in the Terminator movies)? And what if, when that bright flash of light dissipated, there was a crouching nude mailman there? Grasping a bag of letters from…wait for it… the future!?
And what if he walked right up to Keanu (his nether-region would be covered by the mailbag, FYI, to retain the PG-13 rating) and handed him a letter and said something to him like: “I’ve got a letter for you…from the future!!” and when he said the word “future” there was this echo-like effect and some lightning in the background or something? Maybe even an eclipse at the particular moment in which he said that word?
Keanu would totally buy into it. And so would I.
Then, the mailman from the future would hand Keanu some kind of portable device that would fit in his palm. And he’d say something like, “press this button when you have mail that needs to go back to the future and I’ll reappear!”
Problem solved. The Lake House is now way more realistic. And I’d totally buy into it.
But until the point that the Producers come back and make some well-needed, real-world changes to the film, I will continue to stand strong with my opinion that, yes, The Lake House is completely unrealistic, totally unbelieveable, and so badly researched that someone needs to get fired.
ASAP.
What really would’ve made it cool was if whichever one of them was in the future kept mailing back newspapers, and the person in the past could make a living being a clairvoyant or a stock market genius or something. Or else they could’ve skewed the timeline off into some weird parallel universe, like in Back to the Future Part 2.
Comment by Keith — June 19, 2006 @ 9:08 am
Wait a second. Terminator 2 came out, like, over a decade ago, didn’t it? You’re telling me that in all that time, you don’t think time-travel scientists have figured out a way to let a time-traveler’s clothes time-travel with him or her?
Comment by annabel lee — June 19, 2006 @ 9:13 am
See, now THAT is a movie I’d go see.
Comment by Karl — June 19, 2006 @ 9:23 am
Karl - See, that’s what I’m saying.
Comment by Pauly D — June 19, 2006 @ 9:41 am
If future letters were sent to me I would not worry about the red flag on the mailbox. I would publish a book with the “future persons” letters. It would be a bestseller. After many PR gigs on the ‘Today’ shows and the like, the movie would be made. Kanua Reeves and Sandra Bullock would star in it, of course.
But then there would be some guy in LA who would publically state that my movie was unrealistic. Then I would think to myself, “Where is the mailman when you need him.”
Comment by Syd — June 19, 2006 @ 9:41 am
Hey, if I could get the USPS to deliver all my mail on time and to the correct address with no errors at even a 90% success rate, it might be enough for me to consider my mailbox to be miraculous.
Until that time, though…
Comment by Kevin — June 19, 2006 @ 9:54 am
i really wish i had a magical mailbox. i love getting mail though i don’t want keanu to send me mail.
i have standards, you see.
Comment by ms. sizzle — June 19, 2006 @ 12:05 pm
Ok I loved the movie. Saw it Sunday. I am a hopeless romantic!
Comment by cassie — June 19, 2006 @ 12:12 pm
Isn’t Jennifer Aniston “America’s Sweetheart”? And when you said “crouching nude mailman” I got a mental image of my own mailman (he’s nice guy but eyeww!).
Comment by susan — June 19, 2006 @ 12:40 pm
Pauly, you KNOW you are America’s Real Sweetheart!
Comment by monkeyinabox — June 19, 2006 @ 12:57 pm
I dragged my feet at seeing this flick, but was conned into it by promises of “movie theater butter” and “uncomfortable chairs.”
And about 10 minutes into it I had already mapped out the plot correctly and enjoyed a little nap in the climate controlled theater.
Comment by Bre — June 19, 2006 @ 1:36 pm
I’m with you, Bre. I wanna know who THEY thought WE thought the guy laying in the street with the Keanu-Reeves-hair was.
Comment by Lacy — June 19, 2006 @ 2:53 pm
i read the review for this in our paper and i had no idea what was going on, you actually explained it very well here. i think keanu looks hot in the pics i saw, i’d probably go and watch it just to see him.
Comment by better safe than sorry — June 19, 2006 @ 7:50 pm
That one certainly got you to thinking. I haven’t seen the movie, but if I do, I would like to take a copy of your post along with me.
And I like my people in the here and now.
Cas
Comment by cassie-b — June 20, 2006 @ 4:50 am
I haven’t seen this flick yet, but I’d say the real concept problem is that they’re only living TWO years apart. Um, okay, so you lived in this house two years ago so I send you a magic letter saying I want to hook up, so send me your current address and I’ll meet you there. What’s the problem? Three letters min. need to be exchanged, then he looks her up, wham, bam the movie’s over in 15 minutes. I mean seriously… If they lived 100 years apart I’d understand the dilema, one of them is dead after all or the other isn’t born yet, but two years!?! Come on. That fact alone will keep me from seeing this movie.
Comment by Christine — June 20, 2006 @ 5:49 am
The premise for this movie doesn’t seem nearly as bad or far-fetched as that one with Reese Witherspoon playing a ghost who falls in love with the guy living in her old apartment - Just Like Heaven, or something like that? OMG, every time I saw the trailer (which was like every time I went to the movies for a three-month period), I wanted to throw popcorn at the screen, especially the part where her body is stuck in a table. Gah. And what about Jon Heder trying not to be Napoleon Dynamite? Ick. I never saw the movie, but I will admit that’s it’s somewhere in my NetFlix queue.
Comment by Jen — June 20, 2006 @ 8:49 am
Jen - Well, I’ll say that The Lake House is far better than Just Like Heaven. Man, that movie was ridiculous. I mean, even if ghosts exist - would you hang around your old apartment as a ghost? No way. You’d go to Paris.
I know this for a fact.
Comment by Pauly D — June 20, 2006 @ 8:57 am
I don’t get it!?!?! At the end of the movie are they BOTH dead?!?! I am totally flummoxed by this film.
Comment by Care — June 20, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
Well, my only question is…what possible power compelled you to SEE this movie? ‘Cuz, um, it ain’t even on my “maybe I’ll watch it on cable someday” list. Your version? Heck, yeah. But as is? Why?
Comment by Belinda — June 20, 2006 @ 10:58 pm
Yeah…I agree, even though I haven’t yet seen the movie (and probably won’t until it comes to Netflix!) But…what is even more unbelievable is that both Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are still being asked to make movies…and, being paid handsomely for them…and, actually calling themselves actors. Now that’s unbelievable! Keep up the good work…I just found your blog.
Comment by Skip Hansen — June 23, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
I’m not a big fan of Keanu and I probably won’t see the movie, but I have to agree that for them to be corresponding two years apart isn’t so impressive. Heck, have them twenty years apart and have one of ‘em be a toddler who can’t write yet — now that would impress me! As for them using the magic mailbox to communicate, sometimes it actually takes twenty years to get your mail if it’s coming from a long way so I guess that part wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. Plus, if it’s 2004, wouldn’t you just exchange emails or phone numbers in the letters and bypass the USPS all together?? SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS!
PS: Paul, your version sounds infinitely funnier, but I have to say that I’ve never met a postman that I’d want to see naked.
Comment by Monica Ricci — June 25, 2006 @ 2:29 pm
Pretty soon, the movie will be not only screwed up in its chronology, but anachronistic as well. There are online post office boxes now that will pretty much take all the romance out of those rusty things with the flag.
Comment by Cameron — July 3, 2006 @ 9:20 pm
If any of you had seen love letter you would stop being such idiots and realise this movie is written after the old movie the love letter it is just brought to mor emodern day times.
Comment by Zelajor — February 23, 2007 @ 12:56 pm
Holy crap…
Comment by Dave2 — February 23, 2007 @ 2:55 pm