Netflix’s Irish Wish Grants Lindsay Lohan a Great Career Move
Last year, when my daughter had a sleepover party for her 13th birthday, my husband and I labored over possible movies they could watch. What would be cool enough for a bunch of 12 and 13-year-olds, but also age appropriate? We should not have stressed. Within seconds, they all agreed they wanted to watch 1998’s The Parent Trap, starring Lindsay Lohan. This year, perhaps spurred on by the recent movie musical, they’ve been into 2004’s Mean Girls. This is the Lindsay Lohan they know. The actress with the vibrant red hair and sparkly eyes who starred in movies that have been woven into our pop culture psyche. Before the drug use, before her parents made headlines, before she became tabloid fodder. I’m always rooting for Lohan. She survived early fame and scrutiny. I want her to come out on top. I want the world to know the Lindsay Lohan my daughter and her friends know. And it seems that Hallmark-esque Netflix movies like Irish Wish are just the thing. I love this career choice for her.
In 2022, Lohan starred in Netflix’s Falling for You opposite Chord Overstreet. And she’ll have another holiday film, Our Little Secret, coming to the streamer later this year. But now, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, comes Irish Wish. Lohan stars as Maddie Kelly, a New York book editor with a habit of putting other people before herself. She’s in love with Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos), the rakish best-selling author with a charming brogue. The only problem is that Maddie has never told him how she feels. At the launch party for his newest book Two Irish Hearts, Paul meets Maddie’s best friend Emma (Elizabeth Tan). A few months later, Maddie suddenly finds herself traveling to Ireland for Emma and Paul’s wedding.
When Maddie makes a wish to the mischievous Saint Brigid (Dawn Bradfield), she finds herself in a Freaky Friday situation. Suddenly she’s living in an alternate universe where she’s the one marrying Paul and James Thomas (Ed Speleers), the cute guy she met at the airport, is their wedding photographer.
Filmed in Ireland, Irish Wish, which makes terrific use out of the country’s locations, lulls you into not asking too many questions. Why, for instance, is Jane Seymour, who plays Maddie’s mother Rosemary, shown mostly through FaceTime calls? Seymour is relegated to a series of pratfalls so incongruent it seems like maybe her inability to travel to Ireland happened at the last minute and part of the script by Kirsten Hansen might be missing. The fact that all Seymour’s scenes were so clearly shot without any of the other cast around gives off serious “Kim Cattrall And Just Like That cameo” vibes. It’s too bad, because the relationship between Maddie and Rosemary is a fun one. “You promised you’d call when you landed,” Rosemary nags Maddie in one of their many relatable exchanges.