The Parent Trap (1998)

Barbara Shulgasser started her review by saying, “I'm trying to remember what my reaction to "The Parent Trap" was when I saw it as a little girl in 1961. My primary recollection is that it was extraordinary that through the magic of movie technology, one actress - Hayley Mills - was able to play two little girls.”

As technology has improved the magic has gotten even more whole. In the first movie I had heard of her in, Lindsay Lohan is a shockingly self-confident child who is impressive as the long-separated twins, Annie and Hallie, who meet ironically at summer camp.

What the two freckled, red-headed fencing and poker experts find out when they each other is that their parents, Elizabeth James (Natasha Richardson) and Nick Parker (Dennis Quaid), divorced when they were babies and haven’t seen each other since.

Shulgasser described, “While the twins in the 1961 movie were pretty identical in looks as well as personality, these twins are more like those identical cousins Patty Duke played on television. Annie, with a cultured English accent, was raised in London by her wedding dress-designing mom in an atmosphere of gentility, hushed book-lined rooms and tweed.” The butler, Martin, played by Simon Kunz, is her best friend. Hallie is a cool American kid raised in Napa on her father’s vineyard. The housekeeper, Chessy, played by Lisa Ann Walter, is her surrogate mother.

Shulgasser compared, “Now if this movie were "The Nanny," Nick would have married Chessy years ago.” However, it’s “The Parent Trap,” the 1998 remake, and it is, therefore, necessary for the twins to act like one another and return to the wrong parents at the end of the summer to try and get them to remarry. For this to work, Nick would have to be single.

The big drama in the movie, which was written by producers Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, along with David Swift, is that when Annie goes to Napa disguised as Hallie, she finds that Nick is about to marry someone who is after his money. Meredith Blake is a tall blond foul-mouthed brat and, as played by Elaine Hendrix, she is dislikable.

Going straight into everything, Hallie admits to Elizabeth who she is and mother and daughter catch the next flight to the U.S.A. where Meredith is busy trying to plan the wedding and send Annie to an abroad boarding school, like Switzerland.

Shulgasser described, “Meredith's transparent greed makes her a wonderful foil for Annie and Hallie, who are two of the cleverest trick-playing kids since Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone."

Meyers does a good job directing this rich story about the problems of the rich and unbeloved. As always, Richardson is calm and kind in her persona. You would want to be her daughter and you can understand why Hallie, once she’s found Elizabeth, would be hesitant to give her up. Shulgasser admitted, “And Quaid is still a bit boyish for my taste - it's unseemly at his age - but he does a creditable mid-life crisis victim succumbing to the charms of a toxic younger woman.”

Shulgasser continued, “I don't know what little girls today are going to remember about this movie 37 years from now, but parents can take heart in knowing that it's a movie they can safely let their kids see.”

Shulgasser went on, “What I don't understand is why a wide range of utterly unrelated and out-of-context music is used. All of sudden, boom, we hear the theme from "The Great Escape." And then, equally out of nowhere, there is the Beatles tune "Here Comes the Sun" played against a shot reminiscent of the "Abbey Road" album cover that has nothing to do with anything except that it's a street corner in London and the movie is shot partly in London.”

“In the Mood” is played as if there were a large dance scene coming up, but of course, there isn’t. The danger in using such recognizable and suggestive music is that the audience expects to mean something and wonders why it doesn’t. the one thing you don’t want your audience doing is taking time to think the soundtrack when they’re supposed to be sucked into the plot.

I’m sorry, I know this remake has a huge fanbase, but I’m not a fan. I remember seeing commercials for this movie growing up, but I never bothered to watch it because I thought I wouldn’t like it. I did remember seeing half of the movie some time when I was in Middle School, but when I went back and watched the entire movie a few months back, I just didn’t get into it. It’s not my type of film. Maybe it’s because I don’t really like Lindsay Lohan, but maybe the movie wasn’t my kind of film I enjoy. If you want to watch it, I don’t think it will hurt I would leave it up to you if you want to watch it. If you have and didn’t like what I said, just remember, this is all opinion-based.

Well, I’m done with this franchise now. Stay tuned tomorrow when I look at the next franchise in “Disney Month 2023.”