PicoBlog

I wish I was the sort of person who never had to ask himself, “Am I not enjoying this movie because it’s bad or because my brain is in a place right now where it’s very difficult to experience pleasure?” 

Of course, it does not have to be an either/or proposition. It is entirely possible for me not to enjoy a movie both because it is bad and because the misfiring synapses in my cerebellum have robbed me of the joy I sometimes get from even objectively terrible entertainment. 

Unfortunately, that's the case with Irish Wish, Lindsay Lohan's new Netflix romantic comedy. It’s the kind of fluff I would laugh at if I were in a better emotional place. 

Instead, I just found it depressing to the point of being dispirited. When you’re feeling down, sometimes the idiocy of rom-com formula can give you a chuckle and a boost, and sometimes, it just makes you feel worse. 

This was the case with Irish Wish, even though it has all sorts of elements that I generally enjoy, such as lead characters who are involved in the publishing industry. I used to be involved in the publishing industry. Published books with Scribner and everything. Then things took a turn.

In Irish Wish, Lindsay Lohan is miscast as Maddie Kelly. She’s the adoring editor of Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos), an intensely Irish, not particularly attractive or appealing best-selling author she’s madly in love with. 

Every look Maddie gives her star writer unmistakably says, “Even though we’re friends and work colleagues now, I have been in love with you for ages. Let’s profess our love for one another and get married.” 

Having a painful crush on Paul is pretty much Maddie’s entire identity. Yet she unbelievably hasn’t so much as mentioned that she’s at least a little bit attracted to someone she works with to her longtime best friend Emma (Elizabeth Tan). 

Paul tells Maddie that he wants to take their relationship to the next level, but rather than pledge his undying love, the author tells Maddie that he wants her to help him with his next book. And, of course, by “help him with his next book,” he means write his next book for him.”

It’s never quite apparent what Maddie sees in Paul. I naively assumed that Maddie must be in love with Paul because he’s such a wonderful writer, and she’s in love with his words. But it is instead established that Paul wants Maddie to do all the work so that he can receive all the credit. 

Then Paul meets Emma, who somehow does not realize that her best friend of decades is in love with her coworker. It’s love at first sight. A cut or two later, Maddie is traveling to Ireland to be a bridesmaid in Paul and Emma’s destination wedding. 

The universe does everything in its power to let Maddie know that Paul isn’t remotely into her and is also a creep, but she proves astonishingly dense.

It just doesn’t seem fair to Maddie that she’s not the one marrying Paul just because of his complete and total disinterest in her.

At an airport in Ireland, Maddie meets cute/sassy with James Thomas (Ed Speleers), a dashingly handsome English photographer she keeps running into. 

Where the universe strongly discourages Maddie from continuing to pursue James, it stops just short of putting a giant neon sign in front of Maddie, pointing to James, reading, “This is the man for you.” 

Maddie nevertheless very selfishly and stupidly wishes that her best friend’s fiance was actually marrying her. The nerdy bookworm finds an unfortunate answer to her unwise prayers in the form of a fairy with an impish twinkle in her eyes who turns out to be a playful Saint Brigid, played by Dawn Bradfield.

Maddie wakes up to discover that her stupid, stupid dream has come true, and now she’s the one marrying Paul instead of Emma. It’s pretty goddamn apparent, but it nevertheless takes Maddie an appallingly long time to realize that she now exists in a world of supernatural romance, where magical things happen to teach people the tritest of lessons. 

Things begin to go wrong from the start. Even in this alternate universe where Paul asked Maddie to marry him instead of Emma, it’s pretty damn apparent that he actually fancies Emma regardless. 

Maddie might have gotten a hint that this might happen from the fact that PAUL ASKED EMMA TO MARRY HIM just a few months back, but Irish Wish nevertheless tries to pretend that it’s somehow a surprise that the dynamic of Paul preferring Emma over Maddie would happen again in a post-wish world. 

All it takes is a pleasant day or two with the handsome photographer to make Maddie realize that her entire adult life has been a goddamn lie and that she never really loved  Paul in the first place and was always meant to be with a man she has spent as many as ninety-six hours bonding with against the verdant scenery of Ireland. 

At the very end, Lohan has a big monologue in which she tearfully describes all of the emotional growth she has experienced over the past few days and what it has taught her about life, love, fate, and destiny. 

I was reminded of an anecdote about Bull Durham. Apparently, writer-director Ron Shelton was convinced that Kevin Costner’s “I believe” speech would be cut because it doesn’t move the plot forward and calls attention to itself. 

For Shelton, the whole point of the speech was to get an actor of Kevin Costner’s caliber and fame in the role. Of course, the monologue was not edited out. It went on to become the best-known and most iconic element of the much-loved romantic comedy. 

Most big monologues can be cut without harming the film as a whole. Lohan’s big dramatic moment feels arbitrary and overwrought, but it’d be impossible to harm a film with so little going for it. 

Everything in Irish Wish is predictable and overly familiar and executed blandly and forgettably. It’s a movie without a single spontaneous or unexpected moment. 

The film has been pitched as Lohan’s return to physical comedy and romantic comedy, but the effortless charm Lohan once conveyed has been replaced by a palpable desperation that belongs to the actress more than the character she plays. 

Lohan’s underwhelming latest made me wish that I was watching a different, less terrible movie. 

One Star out of Five  

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