The Parent Trap · reception & legacy
1998 · Nancy Meyers
How The Parent Trap has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A well-liked summer hit in 1998, it has since been promoted from 'good Disney remake' to full millennial comfort-classic — buoyed by nostalgia for peak Lindsay Lohan, affection for Natasha Richardson, and the internet's canonisation of the Nancy Meyers lifestyle aesthetic.
What's debated
The eternal rewatch debate: was Meredith Blake actually the villain, or a 26-year-old woman gaslit and tormented by children — 'Meredith did nothing wrong' is practically its own genre of Letterboxd review.
Its footprint
The secret handshake, Oreos dipped in peanut butter, and 'you wanna know the real difference between us?' are permanent millennial shorthand, and the film is ground zero for the whole 'Nancy Meyers kitchen' interiors discourse; a 2020 cast reunion with Katie Couric went appropriately viral.
Where it stands
A sleepover-canon staple and certified Letterboxd comfort film — one of the rare remakes fans will defend as equal to (or better than) the original.