Reviewing - The Lohan Legacy
It's October 3rd. And I felt I couldn't approach this special date this year without revisiting the film that made the day so important. But why stop there? I ended up watching three Lindsay Lohan flicks that millenials know so well - here's what I thought.
The Parent Trap (****)
In which a father in California and a mother in England independently decide to send their kids to a summer camp in Maine
Classy. Funny. Endlessly charming. There’s little wonder why this is my wife’s favourite film.
I don’t know if I had ever seen this film before meeting Jenna, but I certainly remember watching it multiple times with her over the course of our relationship. Neither of us have ever seen the original film that this one was based on, so I can’t judge the film on its originality or compare it to its predecessor. What I can do is look at the way it executes the things it attempts, and boy, it does them well. From the opening credits, you know this is going to be a film about classy people doing classy things. Nat King Cole sings ‘L.O.V.E’ while we watch Hallie and Annie’s parents get married on board a beautiful cruise ship. And apart from the opening act at a campground, the film’s locales continue to be nothing but entirely luxurious. The twin’s dad owns a vineyard and a massive estate, while the mother designs bridal gowns, speaks fluent French, and works in the heart of London. Everything about this film looks good. That doesn’t necessarily make it a good film, but it can’t be said that it isn’t fun to watch and admire the stuff that’s onscreen.
The campground is the one bit of this film that isn’t as ‘rich’ as the rest of it, but it’s one of the best parts of the whole movie. While the segment focuses on the beginning and development of the relationship between Hallie and Annie, it’s also a heartfelt ode to the camp experience – from the morning horn to the late night pranks. As someone who’s had so many wonderful experience at ‘camp’, this segment never ceases to delight me.
But look, what makes this film the wonderful thing that it is is its actors. Elaine Hendrix plays a wicked (in both senses of the word) stepmother-to-be, constantly in love with herself and pulling the rest of us along for the ride. Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson play a comically convincing pair of exes, and Richardson’s scenes with her daughters in particular are really heartfelt. The bit where Hallie meets her mom for the first time nearly made me tear up even after having watched it so many times before. I’m usually such a sucker for father-son flicks, but the reconnecting of a mother and her long-lost daughter just works so well in this movie. The twin’s parents each have hired help in the form of a butler and a nanny, and they both get their moments in spotlight as well. But over all of the grown-ups is the performance of Lindsay Lohan in her breakout role. To be honest, I still don’t know how they pulled off some of the twin scenes from a technical standpoint – but what makes these scenes so great is how well Lindsay plays off of herself. She’s as charismatic and confident as anyone else on screen, and it goes without saying that she could have carried the film on her own shoulders even if the other actors had stunk. She was fun from start to finish.
There are many films more dramatic, thought-provoking, or tear-jerking than this one. Even so, The Parent Trap is a movie that I’ll likely never be opposed to watching. It’s a feel-good film that hasn’t aged in two decades, and it’s stuffed with great performances, stunning settings, and a killer soundtrack. Seriously, every song in this film is terrific. If you’re looking for a chill night in, you can’t go wrong with this film.
Freaky Friday (***)
In which Chad Michael Murray and Jamie Lee Curtis fall in love
It’s not shooting for the stars, but Freaky Friday’s simple premise leads to simple fun.
Freaky Friday was the last stop on my list of Lohan flicks that I’d grown up with. After the charm of “Parent Trap” and satire of “Mean Girls”, this film probably leans towards the former in terms of style. It’s not setting out to say anything particularly new – or even to say something old in a new way. It’s really just a venue for two fun performances – Lindsay Lohan acting like a mom and Jamie Lee Curtis acting like a teenager. That’s the heart of the movie, and their scenes together are a lot of fun. I think Curtis gets the better role, and her scenes where she’s adjusting to the adult life are an absolute blast.
There’s a lot of cheese in this film, and you have to swallow your sense of realism many times in order to enjoy the ride. The curse is one thing (as is its morally questionable source), but a lot of characters don’t seem to fully realize the weirdness of what’s going on around them. Further, Jake’s instant attraction to Anna’s mom borders on ridiculous – as does the way he comes around at the last minute to fall in love with Anna. Also, the musical number that we have to watch as the credits roll made me roll my eyes at least twice.
But hey, this movie wasn’t trying to be Citizen Kane. It’s just a fun flick about a mom and daughter switching bodies with some comedic situations bursting forth. And for what it is, it’s fun.
Mean Girls (****)
In which fetch does not happen
Well-deserving of its cult classic status, Mean Girls is a biting satire on the dark side of high school that still hits like a bus almost two decades later.
Some movies have one star performer, but Mean Girls has no fewer than six:
· Lindsay Lohan crushes it as the lead, convincingly playing both a shy, naïve homeschooler and a hardened, manipulative socialite. There’s not one scene where you don’t believe every fiber of her being.
· Rachel McAdams plays one of the greatest film villains of the 21st century, Regina George. She commands the screen and owns every deliciously vile word that comes out of her mouth. She turns on a dime from subtle to blunt, and it’s no wonder McAdams has continued to find success in her career.
· Amanda Seyfried plays Karen Smith, the quintessential interpretation of the ‘dumb blonde’ trope. Hysterically vapid, Karen adds something special to every scene she’s in.
· Then there’s Lacey Chabert rounding out ‘The Plastics’ as Gretchen Wieners, who’s in a weird way kind of like the Dwight Schrute of the film in the sense that she’s desperate to win the approval of her superior. Throughout the majority of the film, Chabert performs like her character might snap at a moment’s notice, which makes those brief sprinkles of insanity an absolute blast to take in.
· Amy Poehler plays Regina George’s mom – a relatively minor role, but one that she manages to use to steal the scene every time. Like many characters in this film, she’s a total caricature, but she does it so well that it’s impossible not to love her.
· Rajiv Surendra is a personal favourite of mine – the Mathlete/M.C. whose confidence enables him to compete for spotlight with any of the above actors. The way he’s unapologetically himself despite his unconventional resumé make him an irreplaceable part of the cast.
Then there’s all the characters with throwaway lines that we see for no more than a second or two each. Time and time again, this movie introduces to new characters that we instantly fall in love with – probably because we knew many of them in high school ourselves. The cast knocks it out of the park.
One of the things that makes Mean Girls so fun and heartbreaking to watch is how accurately it portrays the high school experience – or at least, aspects of my own high school experience. Obviously coming at it from a male perspective, I can’t say I was subjected to ‘mean girls’ myself in the way so many characters here were. But one of the key points of this film was how clique-based its school had become and how much animosity there was between each clique. Protagonist Cady’s first two friends Janis and Damian help Cady understand the lay of the land, and they do so by critiquing every other group in the school. Regina George is unquestionably the villain of the film, but the sickness she has that causes her to view everyone else as inferior to her isn’t one that’s exclusive to her character. Part of the problem this school faces is that each clique sees the other cliques as the worst. Whether you’re a Plastic or a Mathlete, people outside of your group will hate you. That’s not to say that there’s not a social hierarchy, but everyone feels that they’re the only ones who really understand life.
That’s definitely something that I experienced in my own high school – which, by the way, was the high school that they shot all of this film’s exterior scenes in. The road on which Regina George was hit by a bus was the very road I walked down five days a week for four years. I have to admit that like Janis and Damian, even I myself believed at times the lie that my group of friends and I were the only people who really ‘got it’. The problem with this frame of mind was that it prevented me from collaborating with, trusting, and learning from so many people who I was sharing life with at the time. What makes the ending of this film so important is not that Cady defeated Regina, but that she took a step in dismantling the hierarchy Regina thrived in. I’ll not say that she dismantled it entirely – as the shot of the ‘New Plastics’ proves. I don’t think you could ever completely eliminate the dangers of social hierarchy in high school any more than you could wipe out sin altogether. But I do think you can do a lot to fight it, and it starts with acknowledging the strengths and values of others outside your traditional circle. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with cliques in the sense that no one is friends with everyone, but I think when cliques become warring tribes is when they become dangerous. This film really explores that, which is what makes it more than just funny – it’s important.
I mentioned earlier that this film is heartbreaking – here’s what I meant by that. Because this movie so accurately depicts what high school is or was like for so many people, it shows us a lot of things that aren’t really great. First and perhaps most obviously was the sex ed teacher. Beyond being comically unhelpful (as sex ed so often is), he turned out to be a sex offender. This was played for a joke; the funniness of that joke is up for debate. In general, there’s a large number of sexual jokes and sexual situations throughout this movie. Perhaps my high school experience wasn’t the average one, but I feel like the majority of people I knew in school weren’t having sex. I’m not talking about close friends – I’m talking about the total number of students I knew. Now, if I had to guess, I could’ve probably named a number who likely had. My point is that the number who hadn’t (at least in my own perception) vastly outnumbered those who had. I’m totally willing to admit that I’m wrong because I’m going off of anecdotal evidence and gut feelings, but I feel like this film bloats the sexual activity of high schoolers. Maybe it was just me – or maybe it was just my social circle. Either way, I think the vast majority – if not the totality - of sexual situations in high school can be incredibly harmful and even life-changing to those involved. High school is an age when people are learning/deciding who they are and who they are going to be. It’s a time of intense curiosity and powerful anxiety – both of which can be disastrous when it comes to love. I’m not saying romance in high school is inherently dangerous, but sex in high school is a recipe for manipulation and heartbreak. Mean Girls implicitly affirms this – every sexual situation that occurs in the film is followed by a negative situation for at least one of the involved characters. Characters are made fun of for sleeping around, they express open regret about sex with particular people, and so on. What makes me sad about this film is how the film normalizes something that is inherently unhealthy. And maybe that’s not the film’s fault – maybe it’s just a mirror of the world we live in. All I’m saying is that I think we can do better. And speaking as an educator, we have to do better.
Mean Girls is both a comedy and a solemn warning, which is what makes it such a special film. It’s also endlessly quotable. The script is solid gold, and it’s delivered by A-class actors. It’s a hilarious and true look into high school life, and I’m glad to have seen it. And while fetch may never happen, the consistent relevance and popularity of Mean Girls has made it a classic worth revisiting again and again.