The Lake House

The Lake House (2006)

12 mistakes - chronological order

(13 votes)

Factual error: When Kate is at Il Mare waiting for Alex, she straightens the knives at his place. The knives are set incorrectly, with the blades facing away from the plate. The fanciest restaurant in Chicago would never make this mistake. (01:11:45)

Revealing mistake: When Kate kisses Morgan in front of 1620 N. Racine, the camera moves up through the branches of a tree. You can see one of the lower branches shake when it is bumped by the crane. (01:17:20)

Continuity mistake: When Bullock is warning Reeves of the coming winter blizzard, she is looking through pictures that depicted her and her friends enjoying the snow. She then turns to the dog and asks "Remember that day? You were not happy". However it's revealed that both characters have the same dog, given to Bullock's boyfriend by Reeves, so when the snow happened in Reeves' time - 2004 - the dog was with him.

Continuity mistake: During the opening credits, Kate leaves the Lake House via the kitchen, where we see the indoor tree is branches only-no leaves. Then from her car she looks back to the house, where we now see that tree is covered in orange leaves.

tedloveslisa

Other mistake: Every time somebody climbs to the attic in the "lake house", you see a small, dark, enclosed chamber with some abandoned stuff. However, as soon as you see the "lake house" from the outside, it is a single-level construction entirely made of glass, with no inside staircase or ladder, and three smaller glasshouses on the roof. There is not a single wooden panel to enclose the attic, nor any construction in the house that looks like it could be that attic.

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Suggested correction: It's not a "dark, enclosed chamber"; it's a glass surround with part of the windows darkened, but others letting light in. The ladder is shown near the end of the movie (when he's putting the box of letters away) to fold up into a small space, and the "attic" is merely a small space, easily the height of the roof plus one of the glass bits you can see from outside the house.

After looking at many photos of the house, there is no space for the attic.

Audio problem: Alexis confirms in a conversation with his brother that it's Valentine's day 2006, but if you watch his lips he says 2004.

Plot hole: When Kate went to the aid of the man lying in the street, she was very upset about his death. Would she not have got his name being that she works in a hospital? Also she could have easily Googled him in 2006 to find out where he was or that he had died already. It seemed an obvious ending that she would save his life to change history.

Continuity mistake: During the scene when Alex and Mona are riding in the truck with Jack the dog in the back end, the dog vanishes during several shots in which she should be visible.

Continuity mistake: In the lunch scene where Sandra is showing her mom the letter she says the year is 2006. The poster behind her is advertising tickets for the year 2004.

Revealing mistake: Kate's birthday is July 10th. When she is (with long hair) outside on the patio with Alex, you can see their breath as they talk, and there is not a living thing in the back yard, it's all dormant (as in late fall/winter).

Continuity mistake: When Sandra Bullock is at the table in her mother's kitchen, she has her hand to her chin during a close-up, but when the camera angle changes, both hands are on the table.

Other mistake: In the hospital, when Alex's father takes the cup of coffee, it is obvious that there is nothing in the cup. He tilts it quite far back - if it had been full of coffee, most of it would have poured down his chest.

throcko

Girl Patient: My mom's last boyfriend was bald. He was nice, but she didn't marry him.
Kate: No?
Girl Patient: There's always something better coming around the corner. That's what she says.
Kate: If she's not careful, she can spend her whole life waiting.

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More trivia for The Lake House

Question: Why did Alex have to wait until Valentine's Day 2008 to meet Kate? Even assuming for the sake of argument that the "time-traveling" letters stopped after Alex avoided the bus accident on "his" Valentine's Day 2006, Alex certainly knew how to find Kate at that time - and vice versa. The two-year gap where Kate had not known about Alex had closed by that time, and each knew about the other.

Answer: The movie is not about them trying to find ways to meet. They are not trying that hard to meet and the time distance is a metaphor. I think the movie misses the tension that she is trepidatious about meeting and he is trying to respect that. He gets killed the first time for trying to force it! This shows when the stack of letters is piling away. She is worried he is a coward who will not be able to handle real romance. This is shown in his retreat to build mass produced houses and has something to do with his mom/dad. She's the doctor, he's the architect: she saves people for a living and is hung up about her own father's death. It's only when it's life or death that she gets over it and he also figures himself out and stops trying to fix everything.

Answer: Kate asked him to wait, and come in 2008, so that's what he did. Likely they could have found each other before then, but it might not have even occurred to either of them.

They started communicating after he died in 2006 (her time) on his way to see her, but 2004 his time, neither of them knew he had died by this time so there was no way they could have met, my question is how did he know to go and meet her the first time if they hadn't started communicating yet?

They had been communicating for 2 years at that point - his time. Hence why he was going to meet her and got killed in the process.

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