The film includes the kind of summer camp where when the kids play pranks, it looks like they had the help of a platoon of art directors and special-effects coordinators.
The film opens with Quaid and Richardson falling in love on the QE2 and being married mid-Atlantic. Movies like this remember how much fun escapism can be. The two of them have a conversation over an old bottle of wine, and, yes, it's cornball-but quality cornball, earning its sentiment. Richardson, who almost always plays tougher roles and harder women, this time is astonishing, she's so warm and attractive. Quaid is instantly likable, with that goofy smile. There's not time to establish the characters carefully, so they have to bring their personalities along with them almost from the first shot.
She gets to earn her stripes in a camping trip during which she demonstrates, once and for all, that she is not the ideal wife for Quaid.Ī movie like this has to cover a lot of ground, in several different locations. She has a thankless role-the only person in the movie we're not supposed to like-but at least they don't make her just stand there and be obnoxious. Elaine Hendrix, coming across a little like Sharon Stone, is the snotty publicist who plans to marry Quaid-until the parent trap springs. Plump, spunky Lisa Ann Walter plays the nanny and housekeeper on Quaid's spread (he runs a vineyard in the Napa Valley), and bald, droll Simon Kunz is Richardson's butler (she's a trendy London fashion designer). The three important supporting roles are also well-filled. They're played by Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson, who bring such humor and warmth to the movie that I was amazed to find myself actually caring about their romance. It's a splendid story premise, but in a way, the switch is just the setup, and the real story involves the parents. "I'll teach you to be me, and you teach me to be you,'' one twin says, after they meet by chance at summer camp and realize that they've been raised separately by divorced parents.