Friday, September 29, 2006

The Lake House--Spoiler Alert !


Don't read another word if you haven't seen THE LAKE HOUSE and plan to.

Okay.

I watched the movie this past week and liked it well enough. I like Sandra Bullock and Keanu as actors, and Keanu got to smile in this movie, which was a nice change.

And this morning, as I was blow drying my hair, the analogy struck me.

Keanu (Alex) was living two years behind Sandra (Kate.) When he doesn't show up at an appointed rendezvous, Sandra realizes that something must have happened to him. (Duh--at this point I was shouting, "Why doesn't she Google the guy?" But I digress.)

At the last minute, she tells him NOT to go to XYZ square on Valentine's Day, because if he does, he'll be killed. If he'll not go, if he'll just WAIT, he won't die and they'll have their entire lives together.

Of course Alex goes to the square. He looks up and sees Kate, the love of his life, sitting across the busy street. Their timelines have finally overlapped. He loves her, he wants to go to her with every inch of his being, but . . . he waits. And the Bus With His Name on It goes by without knocking the life out of him.

The analogy? Abstinence. Maybe it hit me because I'm a youth pastor's wife and we're always looking for ways to teach kids that waiting really does have some pretty terrific rewards, but it's hard for them to believe that when people are shacking up all over the place (including, incidentally, in The Lake House, when Sandra moves in with that neurotic guy).

So--for what it's worth, there's a great lesson in there.

I'm out of town this weekend, speaking in Birmingham. And don't forget the Book of the Month feature starts Sunday. Next book: in honor of National Breast Cancer Prevention Month, we're going to look at THE PROPOSAL.

~~Angie

3 comments:

Stephen Dean said...

Wow! I never thought of that scene in the light of abstinence. You're right though. It is an interesting parallel. Good movie, too. I love time travel conundrums.

Doni Brinkman said...

I just saw that movie yesterday. Good insight Angie:). I appreciated the love story but had to ignore the obvious questions that stood out - the "Google" point being one of them. Also curious as to why they never dived into the "how on earth did this happen" question. But alas...2 hour story lines can't work out much detail. Also, I read the Canopy this weekend while in San Diego. Loved it!!!! Really loved it!!

Ruth said...

That's exactly why I loved the movie so much -- it beautifully illustrated the POWER of waiting.