“The Parent Trap”
1998 • PG • 2hs 8mins • Streaming on Disney+
Here’s the plot. Nick (Dennis Quaid) and Elizabeth (Natasha Richardson) fall in love and have twins. But things don’t work out. They part ways (and continents), raising Hallie (Lindsay Lohan) and Annie (Lindsay Lohan) in California and London, respectively. 12 years later, the twins meet at Secret Rich Twins Summer Camp (the name’s implied), where I can only assume everyone enrolled is also about to discover they have a twin. At first Hallie and Annie are bitter rivals, then instant besties. They end the summer by learning to imitate each other (being identical twins doesn't hurt) in order to swap places and meet the parents each never knew. But can they bust up Nick’s new romance? (Yes, with vigor.) And convince Liz to give a wine cowboy who looks like peak Dennis Quaid a second chance? (Is that a hard sell? (It is not.)) And will Lindsay Lohan nail the British accent? (She will!)
Some flicks from my childhood haven’t aged well. Honestly? Most of them. But? Not this one. This holds up. With the whole Disney back catalog at your fingertips, it’s easy to find what soured over the years. Ah, a diamond in the rough (someone should use that line!).
This is a Nancy Meyers movie. She of Father of the Bride and The Holiday. She doesn’t make that many movies. And when she does, boy do they have a lot of acts. If you took a screenwriting class, they’d tell you a story people can understand happens in three acts. The setup, the confrontation, the resolution. No thanks for Nancy. She’s got four or five acts worth of stuff to say. Just when you think this movie’s wrapping up, they go camping and that’s a whole thing. Sometime it feels more like life; sometimes it feels more like a TV show.
No one in this movie ever heard of money. No one spends any. No one needs any. No one checks a price tag. No one haggles about a job. Setting aside how very, very white upper class all this is, the movie does get to focus on what drives the characters when money isn’t a thing. A clear overabundance of money strangely hasn’t corrupted almost any of them. Rich people are just people too, this flick says. Which, sure, but: Are they? It’s all highly 1998.
NOTES
Of course, this is a remake of the ’61 film of the same name, which is itself based on the ’49 German novel Das Doppelte Lottchen. A natural progression.
This was Lindsay Lohan’s first film role. Meyers said when casting she was looking for a young Diane Keaton.
Natasha Richardson is a Redgrave—daughter of Vanessa Redgrave.
Alan Silvestri wrote the score. He did both Back to the Future and Mac and Me, which is a good reminder to do your best and always have the next job lined up.
Again, Dennis Quaid is a wine cowboy.