The Parent Trap -1998- Now

The Parent Trap tells the story of identical twin sisters, Hallie Parker (Lindsay Lohan) and Annie James (also Lindsay Lohan), who were separated at birth. Each sister was adopted by a different family, without their knowledge of each other's existence. Hallie was raised by her father, Nick Parker (Dennis Quaid), a California-based outdoorsman, while Annie was raised by her mother, Elizabeth James (Natasha Richardson), a London-based artist.

While the twins are the engine, Natasha Richardson as Elizabeth James is the soul. Richardson brings a tragic, elegant gravity to the role. Look at her face when she realizes Hallie is actually Annie. There is no screaming, no dramatic fainting. There is just a slow, devastating recognition of lost time. She conveys a decade of loneliness in a single blink. The Parent Trap -1998-

Unfortunately, the film also serves as a bittersweet time capsule. It gives us Natasha Richardson at the peak of her radiant charm, before her tragic death in 2009. It gives us Lindsay Lohan before the tabloids, when she was a promising star with the world at her feet. Watching the film now is to witness a moment of pure, uncorrupted potential. The Parent Trap tells the story of identical