'Speed' reunion falls short

In "The Lake House" Sandra Bullock plays Kate, a lonely single forced to sell her secluded dream house when she takes a new job in Chicago. She leaves a note for the new tenant Alex (Keanu Reeves, still struggling with his lines after all these years) asking him to forward her mail. When the two notice their letters are dated two years apart, they realize something's not right. However, seeing the potential for romance, they accept the unfeasible situation in hopes of love.\n "The Lake House" is like two separate films in one. There's the movie about two slightly depressed middle-aged singles dealing with career and family issues. And then there's the supernatural one, where the same two people, living two years apart, write each other love letters and fall for each other. Yet somehow the asinine romance involving a magical mailbox seems so much more real than its practical counterpart. It feels so forced and fake when Alex tells Kate about his troubled relationship with his sick father. That's kind of sad considering just last week, "Cars" got me to completely believe that it's animated vehicles were living, breathing souls with a story to tell. Even the setup to the magical mailbox premise seems more far-fetched than the actual mailbox itself. Kate is so upset she could possibly lose mail she sends several letters begging Alex to forward any he receives. However, when the paranormal element works, it works surprisingly well and the romance manages to be pretty charming.\nThe movie is beautifully filmed with great shots of the lake house, the Chicago skyline and Sandra Bullock's clothing. It's like watching an Eddie Bauer catalog come to life. While easy on the eyes, "The Lake House" isn't as nice to the ears. There's lots of soothing background music, but the often stale dialogue feels like a nail being shoved in your ear.\nAnyone who decides to see this should be aware of its far-fetched plot, however you can't help but ask why don't Alex and Kate exchange phone numbers through the mailbox and then call each other? That way they could hear each other's voices and won't have to worry about getting hand cramps from writing all those damn letters.