Lindsay Lohan’s New Netflix Movie Is Way Too Similar To This 16-Year-Old Rom-Com

Despite being an original story, Lindsay Lohan’s new Netflix movie Irish Wish is way too similar to a 16-year-old rom-com that didn’t do well with critics. After a couple of projects that fell under the radar, Lindsay Lohan has been making a comeback to rom-coms, beginning with the Netflix Christmas movie Falling for Christmas. Lohan later made a deal with Netflix to star in two more movies, beginning with Irish Wish. Directed by Janeen Damian and written by Kirsten Hansen, Irish Wish introduces viewers to Maddie (Lohan), a writer and editor to famous author Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos).

Maddie has been secretly in love with Paul for a while now, but it all takes a turn when Paul and Maddie’s best friend, Emma (Elizabeth Tan), fall for each other. Months later, Maddie travels to Paul’s home in Ireland for his and Emma’s wedding, where, heartbroken, she wishes Paul was marrying her. To her surprise, her wish comes true, but she soon realizes that what one wishes isn’t always what’s best for one. Irish Wish has all the typical tropes of rom-coms, but it’s also alarmingly similar to a 2008 rom-com.

Irish Wish & 27 Dresses Share The Same Story

Irish Wish’s story is strangely similar to the one of 27 Dresses, despite their completely different settings and contexts. Directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Aline Brosh McKenna, 27 Dresses follows Jane Nichols (Katherine Heigl), who has been a bridesmaid for 27 weddings and loves being a part of weddings. Jane’s life takes a turn when her younger sister, Tess (Malin Åkerman), falls in love and gets engaged with George (Edward Burns), Jane’s boss whom she also loves. To make it all more frustrating for Jane, Tess constantly lies to George to suit his idea of the perfect partner and starts doing other things that deeply bother her.

Irish Wish not only has Maddie falling for Paul, who she works for, but he also ends up falling in love with someone very close to Maddie, as Emma is her childhood friend. Although Emma doesn’t pretend to be someone she’s not like Tess did in 27 Dresses, she drops an innocent lie at first to get Paul’s attention. Both Maddie and Jane are bridesmaids at Emma and Tess’ wedding and mess with them in different ways: Maddie by making her wish and Jane by exposing Tess’ lies at the rehearsal dinner.

Another huge similarity between Irish Wish and 27 Dresses is that Maddie and Jane end up falling in love with men involved in the weddings: Maddie falls for James (Ed Speelers), the photographer at her wedding with Paul, and Jane falls for Kevin Doyle (James Mardsen), a journalist covering Tess and George’s wedding. In the end, both Maddie and Jane realize that they wouldn’t have been a good match with Paul and George, respectively, and also realize how they had been taking advantage of them at their jobs.

Why Both Irish Wish & 27 Dresses Failed

Unfortunately, Irish Wish and 27 Dresses also share getting a bad critical reception. Despite being a box office success, 27 Dresses holds a 40% score on Rotten Tomatoes and was criticized for being too cliché, forgettable, having a weak script with “cheap gags”, and wasting Heigl’s comedic skills. Irish Wish quickly climbed to the #1 spot on Netflix’s Top 10, but that doesn’t mean critics loved the film. At the time of writing, Irish Wish has a 34% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics calling it a collection of rom-com clichés and a forgettable film while praising Lohan’s performance and her chemistry with Speelers.

Both Maddie and Jane don’t do much in their respective movies to make the audience care about them and their romances, and their romantic conflicts are solved way too fast and easily after the mess they triggered. It’s to be seen if Irish Wish will truly become a forgettable rom-com or if it will have a chance to make an impact on the audience, but given its similarities to 27 Dresses and the latter’s fate, it seems unlikely.