I wasn’t all that interested in this film until it got rave reviews from Ebert & Roeper. After seeing it, I could have waited till video.
This time travel tale has Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves, THE MATRIX) and Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock, WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING) exchanging letters from the same lake house mailbox only two years apart. Kate has just left the all-glass lake house in 2006. Alex gets her letter to forward all her mail to her new address in 2004. When he goes to her apartment, it hasn’t even been constructed yet.
The two lonely people exchange letter after letter through the magic mailbox and develop a close bond. Outside of their mysterious relationship, Alex struggles to deal with his emotions toward his absent father Simon Wyler (Christopher Plummer, SYRIANA), who is a famous architect that believes Alex is wasting his life constructing cookie-cutter condos. Alex’s younger brother Henry (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, MONA LISA SMILE) reminds Alex that they once dreamed of starting their own architecture firm, but Alex doesn’t seem to have the drive anymore.
Kate has been having an on-and-off-again relationship with meticulous-planner Morgan (Dylan Walsh, BLOOD WORK) since college. The only people she has to talk to is her older boss Dr. Anna Klyczynski (Shohreh Aghdashloo, HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG) and her recently widowed mother (Willeke van Ammelrooy, ANTONIA'S LINE).
Alex and Kate’s across-time romance is sweet, even sharing the same dog. Alex even gets to see 2004 Kate twice, but never drums up the guts to pursue her. The romantic serendipity that the time travel story creates is at times funny, romantic and frustrating.
Frustrating in that people who understand how filmmakers cheat to allow twists to exist will be pulling their hair out waiting for a certain moment to come. When it does come, the film cheats a little. There’s a way the film could have played the moment better, but then the film would have moved into mystery territory.
Director Alejandro Agresti (VALENTIN) brings an unusual, but appropriate, melancholy tone to the entire film. It captures the feeling of longing that the characters feel for each other perfectly. The Reeves/Bullock parts work the best, while the Reeves/Plummer and Bullock/Walsh sequences seem to be distractions that aren’t fully integrated into the overall theme in a powerful way. However, there is a powerful moment with a book that deals with Alex and his father, but the moment plays more toward Alex’s relationship with Kate in the end.
The reunion of Reeves and Bullock does not disappoint. Reeves actually gives one of the best performances of his career. However, in the end, the good performances from the stars are hampered by the film’s idiot plot, which could have been solved by one common occurrence done between people who are writing and have never seen each other. Fans of romances and the stars will find some great things in this film, however they may also be frustrated by a conceit that just doesn’t hold water.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
