Because the memory of the 1961 version starring Hayley Mills had already been sullied with three made-for-television sequels, we cannot very well pretend that the memory of it has now been sullied by Nancy Meyers's remake. The memory of the 1961 version was not exactly of polished gold anyway. The essential situation -- separated-at-birth twins, with no prior knowledge of each other's existence, meet accidentally at summer camp at age eleven, and set about conspiring to reunite their parents -- continues to boggle the mind. The unspecified reasons ("It's all a bit hazy to me") why the parents of the twins decided in the first place to break up, dividing their identical children evenly between them, must be so powerful that the parents would have pledged never for any purpose to get in touch again, and yet not so powerful that the two of them won't immediately start to melt at the mere sight of one another. The father's current fiancé must be so frosty and off-putting that we need not concern ourselves with her feelings when she gets dumped, but at the same time so frosty and off-putting that we cannot begin to fathom what the father ever saw in her. Meanwhile, his loyal housekeeper and loving nanny to his daughter for the past eleven years is so pleasing in manner and appearance (Lisa Ann Walter, who steals every scene to which she is admitted) that only a social code as rigid as the one in Jane Austen's world could account for the complete absence of any amorous inclination on the part of Master and/or Servant. Fittingly, the latter is destined to make a proper match with the butler in the employ of the British ex-wife. Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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