The Parent Trap

Honestly, I have a weirdly soft spot for the 1998 version of The Parent Trap. You know, the Lindsay Lohan double-act remake of the 1961 classic. The actual plot is bananas if you think about it - a pair of identical twins, separated at birth by their divorcing parents, randomly meet at summer camp and then decide to swap places to try to get Mom and Dad back together. It leans hard into the absurdity without ever losing its sense of fun.

Let’s talk about Lindsay Lohan, because she’s the engine that keeps this whole movie cruising. She plays both Hallie and Annie, and she does it with an amount of charm I genuinely miss from most child actors today. Her British accent isn’t Oscar-worthy, but it’s surprisingly decent considering she was only eleven. She nails the differences in personalities and mannerisms to the point where it becomes easy to forget you’re watching one person do both roles.

Visually, The Parent Trap is peak late '90s Disney: bright, warm, and packed with happy energy. It leans hard into cheesy montages and those over-the-top emotional moments - the kind that get groans from adults but are oddly satisfying for a family crowd. The pacing is pretty snappy. They breeze through the camp hi-jinks straight to the grown-up awkwardness, and never really let the story drag.

Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson play the parents, and they're honestly way more appealing than they had to be for this kind of film. Their chemistry isn’t electric, but there’s a sweet nostalgia to their awkward reconnections. Elaine Hendrix, as the gold-digging girlfriend, nearly walks off with every scene she’s in. Her comedic timing is razor-sharp and she leans into the role’s cartoonishness in the best way.

Let’s not pretend the script is flawless. Some of the slapstick is so forced you can almost hear the writers high-fiving themselves. The whole plot hinges on two children tricking every adult they meet, which is ridiculous. But that’s sort of the magic - the film doesn’t care about being logical, it just wants to have a good time, and mostly it pulls that off.

At the end of the day, The Parent Trap works because it’s silly in exactly the way you need a family movie to be. The emotional beats sneak up on you, and there’s an earnestness here that’s hard to fake. Is it profound cinema? Absolutely not. But as comfort food, it’s pretty hard to beat.