Alejandro Agresti
The Lake House

Playing with time, being fascinated by its scientific, arithmetic allure, the slow passing of minutes, hours, days, and finally years; trying to capture its essence, make it tangible and visible, being able to make fun of it, wait for and anticipate events.

On this theme, much literature, much philosophy, but also a lot of cinema has been written; everyone is fascinated by the imperceptible meaning of the present, the pure and concrete essence of the past, the unknown of the future. In 2006, "The Lake House," the first Hollywood-directed work by Argentine director Agresti, was released, a film that once again presents the temporal dynamic as the backbone of an ethereal, elusive, and complex plot. Inspired by a Korean film, ("Il Mare"), this film has elements in its story that set it apart from a certain romantic genre, degraded and usurped in recent times, so much so that it's now impossible to see a romantic comedy that entertains and moves; they are now full of rhetoric and based on repetitions of tired clichés. "The Lake House" tells an impossible love story; she (Sandra Bullock) is a solitary-hearted doctor seeking a bit of tenderness in a dark period, he (Keanu Reeves) is a young and brilliant architect. An intense correspondence develops between the two; they live in the same city (Chicago), but never meet, they can never meet, in fact, there's a problem: she lives in 2006, he in 2004.

The protagonist of this story is the lake house that they both inhabit in different periods; it's thanks to the mailbox that the two protagonists can communicate and erase the time that separates them. There is no rational or irrational explanation for the phenomenon; the director doesn't provide one, it's a suspended story, almost a dream, a way of conveying that, in the end, randomness in life is much more than a mere appearance and can truly influence our lives, and when it comes to affective relationships, there's little rationality involved. Love itself is an incomprehensible feeling, a kind of magical force that moves nature and that no one can fully understand, and if you add to this the breaking of the temporal dimension in which we all live, things become very complicated. A work that is therefore very philosophical but maintains the lightness of a certain way of making cinema for the masses, so it doesn't rely entirely on metaphysics, and Agresti lightens it all with touching, simple scenes that nonetheless don't disturb because the fundamental part of the film is completed without losing track, and this is surprising considering that some hints are not novel. In the end, there are elements freely inspired by other films on similar themes, a bit of "Back to the Future" and "Frequency," but this is normal as it's a Hollywood film that needs to satisfy a bit of everyone's palate and make a profit, but it surprised me because it maintains the cultural side, even if diluted, and the performances of Reeves and Bullock are appreciated. Especially the American actress manages to detach from the trivial and sentimental roles that have been sewn onto her, she has a decent talent and knows how to act, and throughout the film, she maintains her typical slender tone of voice that enhances her Kate, not a great character but certainly well-executed and not stereotyped.

Perhaps the photography is a bit too glossy, but some scenes are very beautiful, most notably the dance between Kate and Alex to the notes of "This Never Happened Before" by Paul McCartney; I recommend it, the first fifteen minutes are convoluted but in the end, it leaves you satisfied and light-hearted.