FAQ

Doctor Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock) is moving from the lake house that she has been renting in Wisconsin. She leaves a note in the mailbox asking the next tenant to forward any mail to her new address in Chicago. Architect Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves), whose father Simon Wyler (Christopher Plummer) designed and built the lake house, moves into it and finds Kate's note. The only problem is that Kate is living in 2006 while Alex is in 2004. Once they realize their difference in time, they continue to correspond with each other and find themselves falling in love, so they try to find ways of connecting with each other in real life.

The Lake House is an American remake of the South Korean film Das Haus am Meer - Il Mare (2000) (2000) (aka Il Mare), which was written by Kim Eun-jeong and Yoeh Ji-na. Siworae was adapted for The Lake House by American playwright David Auburn.

Time warp movies are often hard to follow. It is made difficult in The Lake House because Kate and Alex are separated by two years. Thanks to their mailbox, their correspondence takes place simultaneously in both of their times. It might help to look separately at each of their timelines and then see how they fit together.

Kate's 2006-2008 timeline: Kate moves out of her Wisconsin lake house at the beginning of 2006 and leaves a note in the mailbox asking that her mail be forwarded to her new address in Chicago. On Valentine's Day 2006, while she is eating lunch in Daley Plaza, a man is hit by a bus and dies in her arms. Unnerved by the experience, she travels back to the lake house, finds Alex's reply to her note, and laughs when she notices that it is dated 2004. After a series of back and forth letters, they realize that they are in a time warp. That summer, they "share" a walk through Chicago looking at the architecture. Kate asks Alex to retrieve her book, Persuasion by Jane Austin, that she left in the Riverside train station in 2004. She sets up a time on 10 July for him to call her, but he doesn't, so they plan to meet at Il Mare in December 2006, but Alex doesn't show. Discouraged, Kate asks him to "let me let you go" and goes back to building a life with Morgan (Dylan Walsh). In 2007, Kate finds Persuasion under the floorboard in her Chicago apartment and realizes that Alex must have placed it there during the construction phase of her building. She and Morgan decide to move into a new place, and Kate finds a building that needs massive renovations. They meet with Henry Wyler (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) at Visionary Vanguard Associates on Valentine's Day 2008 to discuss the renovation. That's when Kate learns that Henry's brother Alex died on that very day two years ago.

Alex's 2004-2006 timeline: Alex finds Kate's forwarding request in his mailbox early in 2004, and they begin a correspondence that lasts through his summer (2004), during which he attempts to visit her apartment in Chicago but finds only a building under construction. He also retrieves her book, Persuasion by Jane Austin, from the Riverside train station. In September 2004, now fully aware of Kate, Alex attends her birthday party, and they dance and kiss, but she doesn't yet know who he is (remember, she doesn't become aware of him until 2006). In December 2004, after being told by Kate to "let me let you go," Alex gives Morgan the key to the lake house and moves to Chicago to start Visionary Vanguard with his brother Henry. On Valentine's Day 2006, Alex is hit by a bus and killed.

Now go back and read Kate's timeline again.

At first, they only laugh because their letters are "misdated" as 2004 and 2006. However, Kate mentions that a dog's paw prints were on the walkway when she moved in (in 2006), but Alex (in 2004) sees no paw prints until Jack runs up the walkway, steps in paint, and leaves her prints. Kate also says that she is living at 1620 Racine in Chicago in 2006 but when Alex goes there (in 2004) he finds the building is just under construction. "Can this be happening?", Alex writes. "Why not?", Kate replies.

In 2004, after he finds Persuasion at the train station, Alex writes to Kate and says, "Kate, I have it with me and I'll find a way to get it to you sometime." He doesn't put it in the mailbox as she requests. Instead, he puts it under the floor board in her future apartment (he had her 2006 address so he knew where to put it in 2004 while the building was being constructed) and left the board loose hoping she would notice and find it. In 2008, Kate is clearly pissed-off when Morgan tells her to turn down the TV so that he can concentrate. She goes stomping off into the bedroom, hits a squeaky board, lifts the rug to inspect the squeaky board, and finds her book.

No. The Il Mare (Italian for "the sea") restaurant is an homage to Siworae, the movie on which The Lake House is based. In Siworae, the house on the sea (the lake house equivalent) is called "Il Mare", and it also is the international title for the movie.

That beautiful glass house was built for the movie and dismantled after filming.

On Valentine day 2008, while Kate and Morgan are consulting with Henry regarding the renovations to their new house, Kate notices a sketch of the lake house hanging on the wall. Henry says that the drawing was made by his brother Alex, and Kate asks how she might get in touch with him. Henry then drops the bomb that Alex died when he was hit by a bus in Daley Plaza on Valentine's Day 2006. Kate realizes that the man she tried to save on Valentine's Day 2006 in Daley Plaza was Alex. She rushes to the lake house mailbox and places in it a letter telling Alex not to come looking for her in Daley Plaza. Meanwhile, in 2006, Alex digs out a letter from Kate in which she tells him about the man dying in the plaza and realizes that she is talking about him. He goes to Daley Plaza anyway, but does not step off the curb and the bus passes harmlessly in front of him, changing his entire timeline. Kate also writes in her 2008 note that she's waiting for him at the lake house. Alex waits two years and, on Valentine's Day 2008, he arrives at the lake house where Kate said she was waiting for him. They embrace. "You waited," Kate says. In the final scene, they walk together into the lake house, their arms around each other.

Jack was a stray. She entered Alex's life in 2004 when she left her paw prints on the walkway. After Alex moved out of the lake house, gave the keys to Morgan, and Kate moved in, Jack was still there. After Kate moved out, she took Jack with her to her apartment in Chicago (evidenced because, when Kate returned to the lake house in 2006, Jack was with her). It's assumed that, at the end of the story, Jack is still living with Kate (and probably Alex).

Time warps are a popular subject in many movies, although the cause of the warp might be different from movie to movie. In Butterfly Effect (2004) (2004), a man repeatedly moves through time trying to effect a change. In Ein tödlicher Traum (1980) (1980), a man attempts to go back in time to meet a woman from a portrait. In Und täglich grüßt das Murmeltier (1993) (1993), a man is stuck in a time warp that keeps repeating itself. In Langoliers - Die andere Dimension (1995) (1995), an aurora borealis-like rip plunges an airplane into the future. In Bill & Teds verrückte Reise durch die Zeit (1989) (1989) and Bill & Teds verrückte Reise in die Zukunft (1991) (1991), Bill and Ted move through time with a time machine. Ditto for Die Zeitmaschine (1960) (1960) in which a man uses a time machine to travel to the year 802,701. In the Back to the Future series, Zurück in die Zukunft (1985) (1985), Zurück in die Zukunft II (1989) (1989), and Zurück in die Zukunft III (1990) (1990), it is a car that serves as the time portal. In Frequency (2000) (2000), a radio links a father and son, and in Die Frau des Zeitreisenden (2009) (2009), a man suffers from a genetic "chronome" impairment that causes him to move back and forth in time. In Kate & Leopold (2001) (2001), a man crosses a time gap near the Brooklyn Bridge and finds love.