The Parent Trap ** (1998, Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson) – Classic Movie Review 2861

Director Nancy Meyers’s 1998 remake for Walt Disney of its own 1961 Hayley Mills hit The Parent Trap stars a pre-troubled era young Lindsay Lohan. It is based on the 1949 novel Das Doppelte Löttchen [Lottie and Lisa] by Erich Kästner and the original screenplay by David Swift. Lohan won the Young Artist Award for best performance in a feature film.

Lohan (just 12) plays both identical twin sisters, Hallie Parker and Annie James, separated at birth and each raised by one of their biological parents. They meet each other for the first time on holiday at a summer camp and make a plan to try to bring their divorced parents Nick Parker and Elizabeth James (Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson) back together.

Meyers’s movie is an unexpected, unwanted remake of the popular Sixties Disney live-action comedy-adventure. At 127 minutes, it is vastly over-long and unsubtle. It just seems to go through the motions and wears out any welcome it might have had very early on.

Quaid and Richardson both seem unengaged and Lohan, though reasonably winsome, does nothing special to erase the memory of the truly winsome Hayley Mills in the original. Mills also appeared in three spinoff TV movies in 1986 – 89.

It is rated PG for ‘mild mischief’.

Also in the cast are Simon Kunz, as Martin, the James family’s butler, Lisa Ann Walter as Chessy the Parker family’s housekeeper, Ronnie Stevens in his last film as Charles James, Annie’s (and Hallie’s) maternal grandfather, J Patrick McCormack, as Les Blake, Meredith’s father, Joanna Barnes as Meredith’s mother Vicki Blak, Elaine Hendrix as young publicist Meredith Blake, Polly Holliday as summer camp boss Marva Kulp Sr and Maggie Wheeler as Marva Kulp, Jr, with Erin Mackey as the Annie/Hallie acting double and Molly Mueller as the Lohan double.

Lohan’s mother Dina and siblings, Michael, Ali and Cody appear in uncredited cameos at the airport.

Barnes appeared in the 1961 version as gold digger Vicki Robinson. The Kulps are named after actress Nancy Kulp, who played the camp counsellor in the 1961 film.

It starts with Nat King Cole’s ‘L-O-V-E’ and ends with Natalie Cole’s ‘This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)’.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2861

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