Taglines: Twice the Fun, Double the Trouble.
The Parent Trap movie storyline. When two pre-teens named Hallie & Annie meet through their summer camp, their two lives are rattled when they realize that they are identical twins. With parents, British mother aka famous dress designer Elizabeth & American father, a wine maker named Nick, living in two different sides of the universe, the girls decide to make an identity swap in hopes of spending time with their other parent. The girls later choose to aware their guardians of the swap while at a hotel in NYC, which late reunites the divorced pair and sends them back into remarriage with each other.
The Parent Trap is a 1998 family comedy film co-written and directed by Nancy Meyers, and produced and co-written by Charles Shyer. It is the second American adaptation of Erich Kästner’s German novel Lottie and Lisa (Das doppelte Lottchen) following the 1961 film of same name.
Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson star as a couple who divorced soon after marrying; Lindsay Lohan stars (in her film debut) as both Hallie Parker and Annie James, identical twins who are accidentally reunited at summer camp after being separated at birth. David Swift wrote the screenplay for the original 1961 film based on Lottie and Lisa. The story is comparable to that of the 1936 Deanna Durbin film Three Smart Girls. Swift is credited along with Meyers and Shyer as co-writers of the 1998 version.
About the Story
In 1986, American Nick Parker (Dennis Quaid) and Briton Elizabeth James (Natasha Richardson) meet and get married during an ocean cruise on the RMS Queen Elizabeth II. After the birth of their twin daughters—Annie and Hallie (Lindsay Lohan)—Nick and Elizabeth get a divorce. The divorcing couple agrees that each parent will raise one of the twins without telling her about her sister, and thereafter lose contact with one another. Nick raises Hallie in Napa Valley and becomes a wealthy wine grower, while Elizabeth raises Annie in London and becomes a famous and successful wedding gown designer.
In 1998, Nick and Elizabeth coincidentally enroll their daughters at the same all-girls summer camp in Maine called Camp Walden. Hallie and Annie first meet at the end of a fencing match, when they remove their masks and see that they look exactly alike. A comical hostility between the two girls leads to a brief prank war that ends when the camp director and her assistant fall into one of Hallie’s traps, leading the director to send the girls to the “Isolation Cabin,” separating the two girls from the rest of the campers.
Living together in the Isolation Cabin, Hallie and Annie discover they were born on the same day, and each has half of a torn wedding photograph of their parents. Realizing with delight they are twins, the girls hatch a plan to meet their previously unknown parents and ultimately reunite them once they decide to reveal their true selves. Each girl trains the other to impersonate her, Hallie cutting Annie’s hair and piercing her ears, with the intent to switch places at the end of summer camp.
When camp is over, the twins put their plan into action. Hallie, pretending to be Annie, goes to London to meet her mother, her maternal grandfather, Charles, and the James family’s butler, Martin (Simon Kunz). Annie, pretending to be Hallie, goes to Napa to meet her father, her dad’s housekeeper, Chessy (Lisa Ann Walter), their dog Sammy, and Nick’s young, opportunistic fiancée, Meredith Blake (Elaine Hendrix), who is only interested in Nick’s money.
Distressed by Meredith’s deviousness, Annie telephones Hallie and persuades her to bring Elizabeth to California to break up the engagement. However, Charles catches Hallie on the phone, and in California, Chessy figures out that Annie has been there the whole time instead of Hallie. Soon, everyone discovers the girls’ identities, except for Nick and Meredith, who all remain unaware of the switch until their newfound family members surprise them.
To bring Nick and Elizabeth together, Hallie, Annie, Chessy, Martin, and Charles conspire to have them meet at a hotel in San Francisco by arranging for Nick to meet Meredith’s parents and by not telling Elizabeth about Meredith. Nervous about meeting Nick, Elizabeth asks Martin to accompany Hallie and her to San Francisco. After a few comical mix-ups in the hotel, Nick and Elizabeth eventually see each other in an unexpected way.
Nick finally learns about the switch, and the girls host a candlelit dinner for their parents, served by Chessy and Martin, on a yacht decorated to recreate their first meeting that was on Queen Elizabeth II. At dinner, Elizabeth mentions that Nick did not follow her after she left him, and Nick responds that he was not sure if Elizabeth wanted him to. They make plans for the girls to spend holidays together, but decide against resuming their relationship.
The Parent Trap (1998)
Directed by: Nancy Meyers
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Elaine Hendrix, Lisa Ann Walter, Simon Kunz, Polly Holliday, Maggie Wheeler, Ronnie Stevens, Joanna Barnes
Screenplay by: David Swift, Nancy Meyers, Charles Shyer
Production Design by: Dean Tavoularis
Cinematography by: Dean Cundey
Film Editing by: Stephen A. Rotter
Costume Design by: Penny Rose
Set Decoration by: Gary Fettis
Art Direction by: Alex Tavoularis
Music by: Alan Silvestri
MPAA Rating: PG for some mild mischief.
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: July 29, 1998
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