Lake House, The

Aroview: Languid, high-concept romance teaming SPEED-buddies Sandra Bullock and Keaua Reeves as would-be soul mates exchanging love letters via a "mystical mailbox" from the watery abode they share – despite never meeting and living two years apart.

Film's novel premise manages to float above the surface as a long-distance relationship drama with some rather spellbinding, albeit bewildering fantasy elements, complete with an old world charm given its penchant for snail mail correspondence. Frequent timeline hoping keeps things interesting, and dir. Agresti concocts some wonderful visual elements of overlapping textures and spacial presence – though the fact that his two leads share almost no physical screen time undermines much in the way of any tangible romance developing.

Based on Korean tearjerker IL MARE, this is also something of a footnote on the melodrama craze currently sweeping Asia – although the jury remains out on whether it'll do for romance what THE RING has done for horror remakes.

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