Fun-packed 'The Parent Trap' a showstopper for all ages
By Santi W.E. Soekanto
JAKARTA (JP): What 11-year-old never entertains the thought of targeting an adult (or two or even three authority figures) as the subject of their pranks, throwing a bucketful of suspicious- looking, disgusting liquid over them so they skid on a slippery floor and pull frantically at a web of ropes that blankets them in a sackload of feathers?
What kids would not enjoy seeing a hateful adult struggle through a rocky, mountain hike, unaware that her knapsack was laden down with stones by them? Who would not enjoy seeing how this ghastly soon-to-be stepmother later suffers the horror of having a sneaky lizard dart from her hair into her mouth?
Kids who take their parents to The Parent Trap have the chance to experience the high of torturing adults without any danger of having their own heads yelled off. On the other hand, their parents can wallow in the opportunity to enjoy a mushy romance rekindled between a long-separated, still-loving couple.
The giggles start when feisty, freckled 11-year-old Hallie Parker meets with sophisticated Annie James -- her dead ringer down to her freckles -- at summer Camp Walden for Girls in Maine.
"So, if your mom is my mom and my dad is your dad ... and we're both born on October 11th, then you and I are ... like ... sisters!" says Hallie.
"Sisters? Hallie, we're like ... twins!" says Annie.
Nothing is exactly new in this The Parent Trap, the Walt Disney Pictures' remake of the tale of identical twin sisters who are separated shortly after birth by the breakup of their parents. Several years ago, the Olsen twins (from the TV series Full House) and Kirstie Alley starred in a less giggly version.
"His and hers" kids, the twins are raised on different continents by their two successful parents. Hallie (Lindsay Lohan) is growing up in Napa Valley with her vineyard-owner father, Nick Parker (Dennis Quaid). Annie (Lohan again in a double turn) is raised in fashionable London by her mother, Elizabeth James (Natasha Richardson), a famous wedding gown designer.
Hallie lives a rough-and-tumble life, spending her days swimming and riding horses with her father, and sharing jokes with her nanny Chessy (Lisa Ann Walter). Everything is perfect, except as Hallie says: "I am almost a teenager and I'll be the only girl I know without a Mom to fight with."
Annie has a sophisticated life ("I have class, you don't" she haughtily tells Hallie later), growing up in a London townhouse with a beautiful mother, a benevolent grandfather (Ronnie Stevens) and a classically-trained yet slightly off-kilter butler named Martin (Simon Kunz). Everything is perfect, except as Annie says: "A dad is an irreplaceable person in a girl's life!"
Destiny comes into play when both girls arrive at the summer camp and, following those delicious pranks, find themselves having to spend the rest of the summer as the sole inhabitants of the dreaded "isolation cabin".
It is there that they realize they are twins. Intrigued by what caused their parents to split up a decade earlier and each determined to meet their other parent, the girls decide to switch places.
With Annie's accent and mannerisms down pat, Hallie is off on a London adventure. At the same time, Annie is headed to Napa Valley, only to discover a glitch in the plan to get their parents back together. She meets Meredith Blake (Elaine Hendrix), a slinky 26-year-old beauty whose heart is set on marrying the twins' father.
This story of twins who were separated, reunited by fate and contrived to bring their parents back together is really safe, if overly rehashed, fare for Hollywood. The real inspiration must be a children's book about such twins which became popular decades ago in Germany. In the book, however, things make more sense: the mother is a hard-working employee of a small publishing house, the father an absent-minded and hard-working orchestra conductor.
Even in the book, however, there's really no villain except the beautiful, younger woman who makes the mistake of falling in love with a good-looking man who happens to have a daughter. The parents, who subject their children to the pain of separation and force them to discover on their own the shocking truth that they have siblings, get off the hook with a nice dinner thrown in.
The real star of The Parent Trap is certainly not the classy Richardson or good-looking Quaid, but Lohan, even though she evidently struggles to remember which character is which toward the film's end. "PG" rated for some of the mischief, the movie is a bit too long and meandering, but that only means the kids get to enjoy more of the fun.