She learns that Elizabeth and Nick met on a cruise line and fell in love. In London, Hallie happily meets Elizabeth, the family butler Martin and her maternal grandfather. They decide to switch places to get their parents to meet again and get back together each girl trains the other to be like her. When they realize each has a divorced parent, they show one another a photograph of the parents with whom they have never met and discover they are twins who were separated at birth. When Hallie and her friends perform a dangerous prank on Annie's cabin, Hallie and Annie are sent to the isolation cabin where they begin to bond over some of their common interests. Meanwhile, Elizabeth raises Annie in London where she works as a wedding gown designer.ġ1 years and 9 months later in the year 1998, the twins are coincidentally sent to the same summer camp where they form an intense rivalry. Shortly after the twins' birth, Nick and Elizabeth divorce with Nick being given custody over Hallie and raising her in California where he owns his own vineyard. Soon, they give birth to twins named Hallie and Annie. In 1986, Nick Parker and Elizabeth James meet on the Queen Elizabeth 2, fall in love and get married. It received positive reviews from critics, with Lohan's performance in particular earning high praise. The Parent Trap was theatrically released in the United States on Jand was a box-office hit, grossing $92.1 million against a $15 million budget. Swift is credited along with Meyers and Shyer as co-writers of the 1998 version. The story is comparable to that of the 1936 film Three Smart Girls. David Swift wrote the screenplay for the original 1961 film based on Lottie and Lisa. It is a remake of the 1961 film of the same name and an adaptation of Erich Kästner's 1949 German novel Lisa and Lottie ( Das doppelte Lottchen).ĭennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson star as a divorced couple who separated shortly after their identical twin daughters' birth Lindsay Lohan stars (in her film debut) as both twins, Hallie Parker and Annie James, who are fortuitously reunited at summer camp after being separated at birth. This is a delicious bon-bon of a flick, as irresistible to adults as to their children.The Parent Trap is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed and co-written by Nancy Meyers, and produced and co-written by Charles Shyer. You know what the ending will be even before you watch the movie, but it doesn't really matter. The very 1961 flourishes are priceless: the hopelessly tone-deaf Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello "singing" the theme song the "formal" dance, with the girls all decked out in crinolines and laces Susan plastering her bungalow wall with pictures of her favorite pin up boys (Rick Nelson!) and, my personal favorites, Sharon and Susan showing each other their parents' photos: hyper-posed, glamorous Hollywood 8x10 glossies! The plot actually plays like a highly sanitized Rock Hudson/Doris Day bedroom farce, except that Susan and Sharon direct the course of action. Vicki's verbal duels with Maggie and the twins are surprisingly catty for a children's film, and delivered with perfect villainy. And the criminally-overlooked Joanna Barnes plays Vicki, the predatory golddigger looking to sink her claws into Mitch. Mitch, the twins' father, is played by the ruggedly handsome Brian Keith, who generates the right mixture of roughneck toughness and paternal warmth. The ravishing Maureen O'Hara, in one of her last major roles as the twins' mother, Maggie, begins the film as a nondescript cipher, but her glamorous metamorphosis in the latter half of the film shows just how funny and sexy she can be. Plus, her kicky pre-Beatles British accent and snub-nosed beauty lend her a more worldly air than her contemporaries. She's never revoltingly sweet-there's a winning streak of spice in her personality that separates her from all other child stars.
Of course, at the heart of it all, is the bravura performance of Hayley Mills as twins Susan and Sharon. Carroll once again benefits a film simply by his appearance, and even Nancy "Miss Hathaway" Kulp is on board as a butch camp counselor (quite a stretch). Charlie Ruggles is extraordinarily lovable as the grandfather, and Cathleen Nesbitt plays wonderfully against type as the domineering grandmother. The ever-dependable Una Merkel is a gem as the smart-talking maid, having lost none of her streetwise timing since her brassy blonde days in the 1930's. The high-class production values don't hurt, and neither does the superb cast, right down to the character roles. Saccharine plots, cloying kiddie actors, goopy dialogue.no, thank you! But "The Parent Trap" succeeds admirably as both children-friendly fare and reasonably witty, sophisticated comedy.