I got a weird nostalgic urge to watch The Parent Trap the other day and I was in luck to find it available on Hulu. I had fond memories of watching it as a child and remembered just how good an actor in-her-prime Lindsay Lohan was (talent truly squandered, sadly). If you don't know, I'm studying to be a Social Worker, and rewatching it raised a few red flags. I don't think you need to be a Social Work student to see just how sketchy this movie was and here's why.
1. Who thought this arrangement was a good idea?
People get divorced. Like all the time... But you're telling me the best way to handle splitting up when you have twins would be to move them across the globe and to never tell the either of them they had a genetic copy? Really?
2. What judge would approve of splitting them up?
With any divorce that involves children, you have a custody hearing. The judge in these cases has one job: to look out for the well-being of the children. In this hypothetical world, a judge saw the proposed custody negotiations and thought "Split them up, never tell them the other exists, and they'll just be fine."
Even if they didn't go to court, you're telling me any mother or father would be totally fine never seeing one of their children ever again. Wouldn't you even be a little bit curious? Not even want to write them a letter? Really?
3. Are you telling me you only got one copy of your wedding photo?
Hallie and Annie have spent almost 12 years of their lives thinking one of their parents abandoned them and wanted nothing to do with them. If you're going to be that shitty to your kid, you could at least give them a whole copy of a photo of their abandoning parent.
I've been on cruise ships tons of times before and they LOVE to upsell commemorative photos. I truly do not believe they only bought one photo from the whole cruise...it's your wedding day... You don't want to remember it?
As seen in the end credits when there are like 50 snapshots of their new wedding. Where did the original set go? You have four pics in the montage of you looking at each other but you only have one from your first wedding?
Also, side note, where are all of the OTHER pictures they had of each other? I understand not wanting to look at pictures of your ex every day but their the parent of your two children. They were married at least nine months to make the kids and you didn't think to take one picture? Wouldn't you keep a couple of them?
4. The summer camp is a liability.
Camp Walden should be shut down in the eyes of any health and safety regulation. For one, there's a boy there. Instead of seeing a young boy and being like "Oh man, it looks like your parents have made a mistake, let's call them so you can go home." they just let him stay there the whole summer! Are you that desperate for money you're going to let a boy pretty much suffer all summer?
They allow Annie and Hallie to play poker for actual winnings which is gambling with minors, I bet any parent of the kids who got pretty much robbed blindly by these swindlers would be pretty pissed off their girl's nail polish and allowances were stolen from them.
They also leave their kitchen equipment completely unlocked. What if Hallie went crazy and grabbed a knife instead of chocolate syrup? That would have been a completely different (but PLAUSIBLE) story. Oh, and if two girls are not getting along, just throw them in a dilapidated cabin deep in the forest with no contact with the rest of camp with no adult supervision, you can't even hear them scream (as shown by Annie's ear piercing).
Good idea, right?
5. No one makes a fuss over Annie's earrings and hair.
One time when I was a little kid, a preschool teacher trimmed my bangs with a pair of children's safety scissors. My mom noticed immediately, complained, and it resulted in the teacher be fired, which was completely warranted. This happened in the 90's which is the same time this movie was released.
Anyone who works with children knows you can't alter them or let them be altered in any way. Cutting someone's hair without permission is considered a form of assault in the eyes of the law, can you imagine the legal problems with ear piercing?
If one of your campers shows up to the mess hall one way with earrings and a new haircut, you wouldn't call the parents to give them a heads up and apologize? At the very least, you would probably remove them from the secluded and isolated cabin in the woods with no adult supervision. But no, everyone is completely fine with it.
6. How on earth did they find this camp?
This film was released in 1998, so it's reasonable to assume it's set around then as well. How on earth did Nick and Elizabeth find and both agree to send their kids to a camp in rural Maine? Nick and Hallie live all the way across the country and Elizabeth and Annie are all the way across the ocean.
This would all make sense if there was even one line in the movie explaining how they both ended up there. A simple "I'm so glad my neighbor recommended this camp." from either of the two would have made this more plausible.
Do they not have summer camps in England? How did they find the camp in the first place? Because the internet in 1998 looked like this:
and I strongly believe a small girls camp in rural Maine would not have booming web traffic even if they did have a web page. This was set way before all businesses had pages, let alone Yelp reviews.
7. They totally commit passport fraud.
When Hallie pretends to be Annie, she travels to England. That means she took Annie's passport and ticket which is an actual crime called passport fraud. Even better, when Elizabeth and Hallie travel back to the United States, they definitely had to go through customs again. Was Elizabeth like "Shut up and use the British accent?" because she definitely was aiding Hallie in this crime.
Passport fraud is a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail. Elizabeth would be found just as guilty and would probably serve more time for aiding and abetting. Who cares if you commit a crime on foreign soil if it's all about love, right?
8. How the heck did they figure out citizenship?
From what I know about citizenship, it's a confusing process. The kids were born on US soil, making them both United States citizens. But Elizabeth when telling Nick what went wrong said: "I got on a plane and you didn't come after me." This to me reads as very spur of the moment.
Did she sneak Annie into the country? Did she apply for BOTH of the twins to have dual citizenship with England? Did she think this all through before she left? Did she decide on this while making the worst custody choice ever?
Citizenship isn't something you can just choose one day, so how did it happen and happen so fast?
9. All the adults in this movie are liars.
When Nick and Elizabeth did this arrangement, they also had to tell the people around them too. Nick had to tell Chessy, the housekeeper and Elizabeth had to tell both Martin and Grandfather. This means these two girls who love and cherish these people have been lied to their face every single day of their lives by them.
You wouldn't feel a twang of guilt lying to a child who loves you so much? Also, where are the grandmas in this film? If either side had a grandma in the picture, I bet none of this would have happened. Nick's mom would have been like:
"Seriously, you want to split up your twin girls forever because you fell out of love with your wife? Are you nuts?"
10. Meredith Blake is trash.
Meredith Blake is human garbage. The only reason she's interested in Nick is that he has high property values and a booming business. Nick could be on his deathbed, have two peg legs, and be a racist and she probably wouldn't care as long as she was to gain something from it. She's a smart girl and good at her job, can't she obtain mass wealth without a man?
She clearly doesn't like kids, so why is she agreeing to all of this? If she truly just wants wealth, why wouldn't she just go after someone who doesn't have children...or better yet, someone who is older who has adult children she won't have to raise.
She even brags to her parents about how rich she's going to get and the parents are actually happy for her! Where are you in your life that you hear your adult daughter's plan to marry a divorcee with a daughter (and then two of them) even though you know she hates kids and be like, "You know what, this is a great idea."?
Wouldn't you express a single shred of doubt to her convoluted plan? In 1998 prenup agreements weren't all that common, so chances are they didn't sign one. She would probably end up with less than what she expected when they inevitably divorce because she hates kids.
11. Why are Nick and Meredith moving so fast?
Hallie goes away to summer camp and in those short few weeks, Nick has already fallen head over heels for Meredith to the point where he's going to marry her by the time Annie (as Hallie) comes back home. I've never been a divorced dad, but I'm pretty sure a high priority is how your new significant other gets along with your child.
Meredith clearly hates Annie (as Hallie) and vice versa, but is Nick so in love he can't see that? Even Chessy, who has been by his side for all of these years and kept his stupid secrets doesn't like her, especially since Meredith treats Chessy like a servant and Nick acknowledges she does it.
I don't understand how you could even consider marrying a person if you aren't 100% for sure they'll like your kids. They probably didn't even talk about it judging how Meredith is hell-bent on sending Hallie to boarding school, something Nick would never agree on and how she's genuinely shocked he has twins. Aren't you supposed to have talked about serious subjects when you plan to marry someone?
In conclusion, everyone in The Parent Trap is an awful human being.
Nick and Elizabeth are the worst "good" parents of all time because they can't handle being civil adults, the camp the girls attend is run by money hungry monsters who don't care about the health or safety of their campers, Nick and Elizabeth's staff and family find nothing wrong with any of this and lie to their respective child on the daily.
Nick rushes in to a relationship with Meredith because why? She's pretty? Meredith is a terrible person who only cares about money with terrible parents who won't give their daughter rational advice, and lastly, Hallie and Annie are both mischevious, law-breaking criminals who not only steal money from little kids but commit an actual crime.
The 90s were weird. Happy Viewing!
