The Parent Trap (1998 film)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The 1998 remake of Disney's classic 1961 film The Parent Trap, starring a (surprisingly brilliant) pre-insanity Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, and the late, marvelous Natasha Richardson.

Twin sisters were separated nearly at birth when their parents divorced. The year their father is considering remarrying, the sisters meet each other at summer camp. After meeting and figuring out their actual relationship, they plot to get their parents back together, a plot that involves each pretending to be the other. Hilarity Ensues.

The movie is based on a book, Das Doppelte Lottchen.

Tropes used in The Parent Trap (1998 film) include:

Elizabeth: (to Annie) You're not to worry, okay?
(cut)
I'm sorry! I can't handle this!

Why don't you stop and look me over..
Am I the same girl you used to know?

    • The music playing as the girls are marched to the isolation cabin comes from The Great Escape.
    • And as noted in the trope immediately below, multiple quotes (both purely musical and lyrical) are made for the song "Let's Get Together" from the 1961 film.
  • Mythology Gag: A few lines from the "Let's Get Together" song (made famous in the Hayley Mills version) are hummed/spoken by Lindsay Lohan at several points. It's also incorporated into the score as the first and last few bars of music heard in the movie.
    • The actress playing the Gold Digger's mother in this version was the Gold Digger in the 1961 version -- and both characters are named "Vicki".
    • Meredith is heard talking on the cell phone to a "Reverend Mosby," a character from the 1961 film.
    • The name of the hotel, The Stafford, is a reference to the name of a boy in the 1961 film who Susan is talking to at the camp dance, when the back of her dress was cut off by Sharon.
  • Nice to the Waiter: Chessy and Martin are like family to their respective employers. Averted with Meredith who treats Chessy like a talking dog who would be summoned with a bell.
  • No Sympathy: In the 1961 version, one of the twins gets in trouble for having a messy cabin, even though it had obviously been sabotaged by pranksters. In this version it makes more sense, with the cabin sabotage being the climax of the prank war that gets them both in trouble.
  • Now You Tell Me: A lot of characters find things out the hard way.
  • Off to Boarding School: What would have happened to Hallie (and later Annie, too) if Meredith married Nick.
  • Old Man Marrying a Child: Used as an indirect accusation, delivered with Sugary Malice. When Nick tells his daughter that Meredith is about to become part of the family, she surely understands right away that he's talking about marriage. However, she pretends to innocently misunderstand him and get all ecstatic about how he's finally getting one more daughter by adopting her.
  • One True Pairing: Established in-universe, between Elizabeth James and Nick Parker -- the daughters' reason for the trap.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Happens to both Hallie and Annie, more often to whoever has a British accent at the moment. Often it's the In-Character version of the trope. Lohan had to play four accents -- American, British, American pretending to be British, and British pretending to be American. The latter two had accents slipping.
    • And Lohan does a remarkable job in the scene at the hotel where she's basically playing four characters at once -- Hallie, Annie, Hallie pretending to be Annie and Annie pretending to be Hallie. She switches up the accents just enough to do exactly what Hallie and Annie were after (confuse the heck out of Mom and Dad).
  • Parent with New Paramour
  • Parents Know Their Children: Sort of -- the father looks each twin in the eye and declares which one is Hallie; however, it's not made clear if he's right, since the twins keep playing up the charade and make him question his own judgment.
  • Pet Homosexual: Meredith's sassy gay assistant: "Ooh, Ice Woman!"
  • Reassigned to Antarctica: Meredith said multiple times that as soon as she married Nick, she was shipping the kids far, far away (once she said Timbuktu, another time she said school in Switzerland).
  • Remake Cameo: Joanna Barnes played Vicki Robinson (the fiancee) in the Hayley Mills version and Vicki Blake (the fiancee's mother) in the Lindsay Lohan version.
  • The Reveal: In-universe, several times: first Hallie and Annie to each other (twice), then Annie to Chessy, then Hallie to her grandfather, then Hallie to her mother. And then Elizabeth dealing with the additional reveal of Nick's engagement to Meredith.
  • Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Elizabeth is getting emotional about the thought of meeting Nick for the first time after so many years, she spouts off several of these to Martin.
  • Rich Bitch: Meredith Blake, who was also the Gold Digger and the Child-Hater.
  • Rich in Dollars, Poor In Sense: Nick.
  • Sand in My Eyes: Elizabeth is pleased that Nick still remembers the wine from their first wedding.
  • Scream Discretion Shot: When Hallie pierces Annie's ears, and when the girls drag Annie's mattress into a lake.
  • Servile Snarker: Nick's housekeeper, Chessy, and Elizabeth's butler, Martin. They also become attracted to each other at first sight and end up being the Beta Couple.
  • Separated at Birth
  • "Shut Up" Kiss
  • Sibling Team: Once the girls discover they're sisters.
  • Solomon Divorce: One of the best-known examples.
  • Standard Pre-Ass-Kicking Snippet: Former Trope Namer "Bad to the Bone" plays at the start of the poker game.
  • Sword Fight: Hallie and Annie's first meeting is through an absurdly over-the-top "fencing match" at camp. The girls have fencing masks on as a way to save on special effects, to cover the faces of the stunt people, and for the big reveal that they both look alike when they take the masks off and face each other.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Londoner Annie as the girly-girl to laid-back Californian Hallie.
  • Training Montage: As Hallie and Annie teach each other how to impersonate themselves.
  • Twin Switch
  • Villainous Breakdown: Meredith has one after being pranked by the twins and Nick dumps her.
  • You Are Grounded: After the girls scare Meredith off.

Up to your room. Now.

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