I graduated high school in 2000, so the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap with Lindsay Lohan somehow passed me by. Recently, my youngest son mentioned that he was interested in parent-swap movies. That led us to Freaky Friday, then Freakier (junkier) Friday. Once we were deep enough in the Disney rabbit hole, we clicked on the next recommendation: The Parent Trap.
I was only half engaged during Freaky Friday, but The Parent Trap? What a delight. Lindsay Lohan’s charm steals every scene. They could have made them triplets, and it still wouldn’t have been enough screen time for her. I’m glad Lindsay—we’re on a first-name basis now—is back on the Hollywood circuit with her holiday movies.
Going in, I knew the general premise, but not the details. Mostly, I wanted to know how the twins had been separated. Was there a mistake at the hospital? An unexpected tragedy? Some heartbreaking circumstance beyond anyone’s control?
Do you want to know the answer?
Their parents got divorced.
You read that correctly. These twin sisters grew up without knowing the other existed because their parents got divorced and were apparently content to keep one apiece.
A lot has been said about the evilness of Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka, and I’ve written about how Elsa is the real antagonist of Frozen in my post I Can’t “Let It Go”. But Nick Parker and Elizabeth James take the cake.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe they didn’t want to spring for two birthday cakes.
“Dave, maybe it was a really messy divorce,” you say.
You’d think. But when the subject comes up, neither seems able to offer much of a reason for it. Apparently, Nick could have prevented the whole thing by going after Elizabeth when she left. She tells him she wanted him to follow her, and his response is basically, “I didn’t know.”
Nick couldn’t be bothered to chase after his wife. Elizabeth wanted him to figure out that leaving meant she wanted him to follow.
Naturally, the children paid for this communication exercise by spending more than a decade apart.
The lack of a tangible reason for the divorce makes it easier for the audience to buy into Nick and Elizabeth falling in love again. Which is great. It also makes it easier for this particular audience member to hate their guts and hope someone calls CPS.
They didn’t just choose to miss out on watching one of their children grow up. They chose to keep two sisters from having a relationship—or, hell, from simply knowing they had a sister.
Apparently, the divorce negotiations went something like this:
I get the SUV.
You get the sports car.
I get the KitchenAid mixer.
You get the steak knives.
I get the china.
You get the candlesticks.
I get the sassy one.
You get the one with the British accent.
(Yes, I know she only has the accent because she grew up in England. Please allow me this small inconsistency while we discuss the parents dividing their children like wedding gifts.)
Well, at least they were good parents to the daughters they kept.
Oh, wait.
Nick shipped his across the country for eight weeks of summer camp, and Elizabeth sent hers to another country.
After all those years of carefully keeping the twins apart, they accidentally outsourced the family reunion to the same summer camp.
Maybe Annie and Hallie weren’t trying to get their parents back together.
Maybe they were simply tired of being the only adults in the family.
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