Nitpick about The Parent Trap

I watched The Parent Trap with my 5 year old this weekend, and she liked it so much that we watched both the 1961 original with Hayley Mills and the 1998 remake with Lindsey Lohan.

They’re good, enjoyable family movies, but they definitely beg some questions.

Mainly, what the hell was the parents’ grand plan, and how long did they plan to continue it before telling the kids? Just continue the ruse until they were grownups and be like “oh by the way, you actually have a twin sister and they live with your dad/mom….surprise!” Were they really just going to split the twins up as toddlers and each act like they never had 2 kids (one of which they’d essentially abandoned)? And the girls grew up as only children to single parents and really never asked about mom/dad? The epilogue of this movie would include severe PTSD, bitterness, intense therapy, and the parents begging for forgiveness instead of “wow I’m so glad I have a mom/dad now!”

And why did the parents split up in the first place? If it was so bad they each literally had to abandon one of their children as a baby, then perhaps it’s probably insane to have them get back together.

Near the end of both movies (but primarily in the remake), before the parents reconcile they basically say “well we can’t split them up now” and then proceed to basically do that very thing before the reconciliation.