Confessions of a Streamaholic

I don’t remember watching this as a child but I stumbled across it in my teenage years and since then it has been a firm favourite, I have watched it countless times. Also, could be wrong but I think it’s a massively underrated movie but what would I know as it came out before I was even born. No matter what age you are I think you can enjoy this film, it has humor, romance and a whole lot of fun.

As I’ve said before when looking at older films you always get the opening credits and usually I’m not too fussed for them but I love this one, the song ‘L O V E’ by Nat ‘King’ Cole and the clips of fireworks, a romantic dinner, hand holding etc. It gives the backstory of how the parents fell in love and what you later know to be their wedding night which I think is really clever to do the opening credits. The music throughout is very good I recognise a few songs like ‘There She Goes’ by The La’s and at the end ‘This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)’ by Natalie Cole, had a little dance to this one.

The movie starts with both girls Hallie and Annie both played by Lindsay Lohan going to Camp Walden. Janice from ‘Friends’ pops up, I know Maggie Wheeler is a respected actress but she will always be Janice to me. The camp setting gives you the feel for the movie very fun and vibrant. The handshake we see when Annie gets dropped of by her butler Martin I love shows instantly how he is more than just a butler to the James’. We get little moments where the camp supervisors one of the Marvas gets confused with the girls as she asks then both about strawberries they both say they have an allergy (SNAP cause so do I) which she then looks confused saying she was just told this. The strawberries is the first common thing we hear about apart from the looks. You can see both girls are very competitive and when they go up against each other in fencing (later we see this when they play poker as well) when one wins and they finally see each other for the first time you do see the shock and then we see Janice Marva is confused at who is who.

The girls then have a bit of back and forth with pranks which leads them to be isolated from the rest of camp. In these scenes they both say ‘Take a whack at it’ at points and coming up with sassy remarks. Since Lohan plays both girls I would have been really interested to see when they were filming how much time it took to get through the scenes doing both views and having to have a stunt double to show the back of the other twin, or how they edited it to show both girls in the same shot.

When you finally have them isolated together they get talking and it all unravels, same birthday, both love Oreos with Peanut Butter, one has a mom but no dad, the other a dad but no mom, only a crinkled split in half picture of the parent they don’t have. The moment they realise and Hallie says ‘sisters’ and Annie has to correct her in the proper British accent she has going on with ‘Sisters, Hallie we’re like Twins’, it is just so sweet. Then the plan to switch is brilliant, I am no parent but as the girls say later in the film, what a terrible arrangement they had going on.

I love the interactions the girls have when they meet the parent they grew up without Dennis Quaid was a great choice for Nicholas ‘Nick’ Parker and Natasha Richards as Elizabeth James is iconic, I can’t ever imagine someone else playing her, she is a vibe, her panic moment when she knows she needs to see Nick Parker again is amazing, it’s been my X header for the longest time.

When Annie goes to Napa to meet Nick and gets introduced to Meredith Blake (Elaine Hendrix) I can’t believe she is 26, that’s how old I am and comparing the movie ages to real life is really something but I guess that was nearly 30 years ago. Meredith plays the perfect villain who isn’t a villain. Especially when the twins are back together and they want to break Nick and Meredith up on the camping by sabotaging with the gecko (I think that’s what it is) and her bed out on the lake, she freaks and ultimately it’s bye bye to her.

The realisations the parents get when they find out it’s the other twin really warms my heart. The parents having to meet again is also very entertaining. As above we see Elizabeth James freaking out at seeing Nick again so much so she gets drunk on the plane and sticks her leg out of the taxi for Martin to take when they get to the hotel and Nick follows the elevator door closed when he sees Elizabeth. I love the ending that Annie and Elizabeth leave Napa but Hallie and Nick follow them to London it is so sweet!!!

The reconnecting of the twins and the parents really make this movie, it has a bit of everything humor, fun, drama and of course romance, it’s not a massive part of the movie but it is there especially with what the girls try to do with sending the parents for dinner on a boat again, they have moments so close to something happening and you are like screaming at your TV for them to kiss but they don’t, obviously as a kid you aren’t interested in that stuff but to me this is a borderline romcom after being a kids movie.