Several years ago, in his debut movie, L.I.E., Michael Cuesta undertook to portray a pederast—or, at least, a pursuer of adolescent males—with measures of understanding and sympathy. His boy-lover didn’t escape a kind of retribution, although the movie hinted it was injustice, but Cuesta’s efforts weren’t bent to presenting a monster.

In cities less blessed than ours with alternatives to Hollywood product, The Lake House is the kind of movie that audiences are praying for right about now: a romantic drama with realistically adult characters, featuring an attractive setting and an imaginative premise that is developed without computer graphics or other concessions to young viewers whose tastes have been formed more by video games than by the silver screen.