Happy Monday, gang! I'm back to work after a week off - I'm happy I can ease into things today because tomorrow will probably be a super-busy felony Tuesday!
Today, I'm going with a classic childhood favorite, The Parent Trap. I'm not gonna bother saying spoiler alert every time on these. I loved the Hayley Mills version, the It Takes Two twist, and this Lindsay Lohan version! I remember being excited seeing this preview in theaters because it said "introducing Lindsay Lohan" and I was psyched about an actress who shared my name (with a different spelling, of course). Movies like this always made me wish I was a twin - I can definitely see pros and cons to that now.
Anyway, Hallie Parker and Annie James meet at summer camp and are shocked to meet an identical stranger. They quickly go from arch-nemeses (who pull elaborate pranks that would be 100% impossible for 11-year-olds to pull off) to awesomesauce BFFs when they realize they are twins (whose crazy selfish and immature divorced parents decided to raise them separately and hide the truth from them so the parents wouldn't have to see each other - but we'll ignore that glaring character flaw). Anyway, they decide to switch places so they can get to know the parent they've missed who forever abandoned them, then they team up to try to get their parents back together! The girls teach each other about their separate home lives and how to act like the other so that everyone will be fooled, and it's all light and fun and makes the isolation cabin at summer camp look super enjoyable!
Their parents are, of course, both independently wealthy and living super-magical single parent lives... the mom is a hugely successful wedding dress designer in London who has a quirky full-time butler/babysitter, and the dad owns a fantastic vineyard in Napa Valley, California, and has a sassy live-in maid/chef/babysitter. Unrealistic, yes, but it all makes the movie so much more fun!
It's love at first sight for the girls (whose acting is so on point that neither parent realizes they have picked up the wrong child), but a big problem arises when their dad is unable to see through his painfully transparent gold-digging, way-too-young, beautiful new fiance. Luckily, he has 11-year-old daughters with more maturity who decide to amp up their parent trap plan and rescue him from his own stupidity!
It's a big shock to everyone when the twins reveal who they are and how they met. No one apologizes for lying to them for the past decade because that would really mess up the lighthearted tone, but Meredith (the fiance) is understandably horrified by this massive news her fiance failed to share with her, while both parents are super loving and excited to see their girls together again!
The girls try to plan a family camping trip, then their mom tricks Meredith (the fiance) into going in her place. So the girls pull lots of pranks on "Mer" to try to get their dad to see her clearly. Anyone who's not outdoorsy and hates lizards and bugs and fears mountain lions is bound to be a child-hating villain, right!? lol It's always been dumb to me that this is how he's finally able to see her true colors.
In the end, of course, their finesse and connivery work out swimmingly! Their dad comes to his senses and their mom softens a little, and they all get the best of both worlds. Even the mom's butler and the dad's maid get together for an extra layer of family blendedness. lol
So yeah, I have to suspend and turn off the hyper-realistic, years-of-family-court-experience part of my brain that knows the prequel to all this would be a terribly selfish and catastrophic decision by the parents (something that's harder when I'm trying to summarize the plot in writing), but I actually do love this movie! It's lighthearted and warm and fun and has a predictable happy ending! And I like that it empowers kids to believe their voices matter and can make a positive difference even when their parents really mess things up!
❤
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