The Lake House **spoilers** June 16, 2006

It was a lot messier than the Korean original timewise, and even Il Mare had some problems there. I mean, I didn’t think the final scene was in the right time. Some of the things that had already happened in the future wouldn’t happen if the final scene took place… but anyway. Il Mare worked anyway.

This one didn’t for me. Maybe it would have if I hadn’t rewatched Il Mare last weekend and had it fresh in my mind. It was like me reading the Brokeback short story before I saw the movie. I didn’t come to it fresh, so I couldn’t take it in the same way. I always had something else in the back of my mind as I was watching. In this case, it was Il Mare.

They changed one thing I thought made Il Mare so emotionally affecting, namely the girl’s love for the guy she couldn’t have, the guy she had lost (not the lake house guy). So at the end…

***major spoilers***

…when the girl goes racing to save the lake house guy, she’s not saving him from something she caused. So the emotional impact is lessened. And in this version it wasn’t as clear what she was saving him from. We knew, but we hadn’t seen what led up to it as clearly, we hadn’t seen her ask him to go there (because she didn’t). In Il Mare enough things were implied but enough things were also shown. This one didn’t show enough. And what it did show was the wrong things, the wrong relationships, not things that grabbed me as strongly or raised the stakes high enough for me.

So I didn’t think it measured up to the original. I didn’t really expect it to but, you know, if I had been the one doing the adaptation, I would only have changed the things I thought were weak in Il Mare. Not the things these writers changed.

Maybe I’m too melodramatic. It’s possible. But I certainly wouldn’t have cut the things that made me cry in Il Mare. The exact mailbox scene was in this one, the same scene of the girl collapsing on her knees and holding onto the mailbox the way she did in Il Mare. But it didn’t work the same way. Because the lead-up was missing.

The Lake House was also missing a unifying theme. Or rather, I could see that the writers had made an effort to put in a “the right things at the right time and no sooner” theme, but it wasn’t reflected in all the major relationships the way I thought it should have been.

I don’t remember a unifying theme in Il Mare at all, but hey, Il Mare made me cry. I think I’m addicted to movies that make me cry…

I give The Lake House two stars.

Il Mare… I mean, um, The Lake House April 29, 2006

So I saw the trailer the other day. First off, I had no idea this was even in production yet, much less that it was coming out in June. Second, I had no idea Keanu Reeves was in it. Or Sandra Bullock, for that matter (where has she been lately?), but at least she doesn’t look washed out like Keanu. That look worked for him in Constantine, but I’m not so sure it’s going to work here (notice I don’t mention his acting; I’m not as big a Keanu hater as some people). Still, third, the movie looked better than I’d feared. I’m just wondering how much of the sad stuff in the Korean movie they’ve kept. It looks like they may have kept all of it. If so, the next question is how badly did they mess it up? Or did they actually manage to do a good job on it? I can’t answer that yet.

I don’t remember how Il Mare ends, whether it’s happy or sad. I need to see it again before I see this. Oh, the fact that The Lake House is a remake of a Korean film flashed on the screen for like a second at the end of the trailer. Thanks for paying homage, guys.

Anyway, so now I’m looking forward to it. I can’t even remember what other movies I’m looking forward to, so obviously not many. Oh, Water. Which I am seeing next week. I have high expectations, so it better be good (me having high expectations is usually the kiss of a death for a movie as far as I’m concerned, since they rarely live up to them). What else? I went through all the upcoming movies on Yahoo the other day, and it was mostly the ones coming out in limited release that sounded interesting.

I need to return my Netflix movies finally and get some more. Like, actually start using Netflix again. Oh, and I need a bigger TV. But I am someone who puts off doing things like that. Like I’ve needed a bookcase for months at this point – months! – and I still haven’t gone out and done anything drastic like buy one. So who knows when the bigger TV will appear. Let’s place bets on whether it will be before or after the bookcase.