Lake House, The

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

What I respond to in the movie is its fundamental romantic impulse.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's hard to overestimate what a job of work was accomplished here to keep this from being a catastrophe. But The Lake House, despite its dubious foundation, proves surprisingly sturdy.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The measure of this kind of movie is its seductiveness, not its logic, nor the ways in which it exploits the supernatural angle, and The Lake House is seductive.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Elegantly scripted by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Auburn, The Lake House never establishes any clear rules about how and when these strands of time can intertwine, but it succeeds at forging a bond between people who only know each other on the page.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Bullock has abandoned all her usual cutesy mannerisms, and Reeves is as low-key and convincing as he's been in a role. Whatever else the film is, it's a competent and enjoyable star vehicle.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Bullock and Reeves have an unusual kind of charisma, one that works best when they're apart. Though the filmmakers sometimes put them in the same frame for visual ease, they mostly occupy different times.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

An enjoyably sudsy romance starring a moody Keanu Reeves, a broody Sandra Bullock, and the titular structure - a jewel box of glass and steel perched on stilts over Lake Michigan.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The movie is, above all, a showcase for its stars, who seem gratifyingly comfortable in their own skin and delighted to be in each other's company again, in another deeply silly, effortlessly entertaining movie.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Deliriously stupid romantic time-travel drama.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are both such guarded celebrities that I have a hard time imagining them as lovers, a problem this Chicago-based romantic fantasy surmounted by isolating them from each other almost entirely.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

How deeply silly is The Lake House? As silly as a movie about two letter-writing lovers separated by a wrinkle in time can be. How much sweet, dumb fun is it? More than you might want to admit.

Premiere Ethan Alter

Where the film falters is in Alejandro Agresti's overly deliberate direction, which threatens to drown the drama in amber sunsets and self-conscious camera framings. The film looks great, but it lacks spontaneity, an important element of the most memorable screen romances.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Screenwriter David Auburn's awkward dialogue spells out the film's themes with painful literal-mindedness.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The time-warp romantic fantasy The Lake House is a puzzle that is maddeningly obtuse, emotionally overstretched, and virtually absent a sense of interior logic.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

I am conflicted about this film. I like the fact that it takes chances. I appreciate that it's trying to do a supernatural love story without falling into the schmaltz of "Ghost." Yet I recognize that the screenplay is like Swiss cheese - riddled with hole.

Empire Ian Freer

A compelling idea delicately handled and neatly played, especially by Bullock. It just lacks the emotional directness to turn the good into the great.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The Lake House is an example of the way bad movies can sometimes be more interesting than merely mediocre, workmanlike ones, and of the way they sometimes compel us even against our better judgment.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

If you haven't had enough of Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan weepies like "Sleepless in Seattle" (1993) and "You've Got Mail" (1998), The Lake House gives us Mopey in Chicago and You've Got Snail Mail.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

We also know the last time Keanu and Sandra shared the screen together. That was yesterday and Speed. This is today and Snail. I'm not betting on a tomorrow.

Variety Robert Koehler

Never quite sure what it wants to be -- a magical-mysterious love story, a psychodrama, a sprawling family saga, or an uneasy combination of these.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

A slow-moving, never-igniting tale of calendar-crossed lovers that grows less convincing as it proceeds.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

By herself, Bullock isn't enough to hold up this enervating movie, which lumbers along ponderously until, at the end, it takes a giant leap into the suspension of disbelief that lost me altogether.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

A chronological brain-teaser confounding enough to keep you busy trying to figure out whether those holes are in the story or in your logic. But ultimately the movie is more interested in the love part of the equation than in the whole crazy, madcap physics part.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

This is a project whose elements, from concept to script to casting, refuse to follow the usual formulas, which is good, yet they never quite cohere.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

There is a germ of a good idea in the notion that an imaginary suitor can be more powerful than a real one. But director Alejandro Agresti isn't the man to pull it off.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The only real magic in The Lake House is that Kate and Alex have never heard of e-mail.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The Lake House has the sensibility of something conceived by Stephen King after an overdose of chocolate-covered cherries and valentine cards. In other words, it's sugary sweet and based on a premise that's just -- no other word will do -- ridiculous.

Austin Chronicle Toddy Burton

Don't try to figure out a time-travel movie, it will make your head hurt. And if the movie stars Keanu Reeves, all the more reason to just stop, slowly put common sense on the ground, and back away from your capacity for rational thought.

Village Voice Mark Holcomb

Treading the same supernatural turf trampled by "Somewhere in Time" and "Frequency," director Alejandro Agresti's gooey, ostensibly spooky romance yarn The Lake House flounders less on its thudding familiarity than on its mood- killing dourness.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

The Lake House overflows with heart-stopping thrills, if by ''thrills'' you mean ''watching attractive people wait around for letters to be delivered by mystical forces.'' Which, come to think of it, makes this romantic melodrama sound a lot more interesting than it is.

USA Today Claudia Puig

One of the more befuddling movies of recent years. The premise makes no sense, no matter how you turn it around in your head.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A glacially paced, extremely moist, terminally gloomy and cliché-laden romantic drama with a supernatural twist.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Nothing stands up to scrutiny -- least of all the lethargic acting and the clumsy script. I was hot to trot for the exit halfway through, but a dogged sense of duty kept me stuck in an endless present.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

I can't believe that even the most rabid chick-flick masochists wouldn't gag on it.