I will watch anything Lindsay Lohan is in – she’s been in enough iconic films that I can excuse the bad ones. That being said, Irish Wish is not good. It’s not because of Lohan’s performance, as the fault lies squarely with the script, which does not embody the fundamentals of a rom-com despite it being a rom-com.
The premise of the film is simple. After working with Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos) on his novel as his editor, Maddie (Lohan) has fallen for him. The problem is, she doesn’t tell him how she feels, and at his book launch he connects with Maddie’s friend Emma (Elizabeth Tan) instead. Months later, the two are getting hitched in Ireland, and Maddie’s a bridesmaid along for the ride. Maddie is still in her head about Paul, wishing that she had the guts to tell him how she felt before he and Emma developed their romance.
Through some Irish magical whimsy, her wish to marry Paul suddenly becomes reality, and Maddie finds herself in the role of the bride the very next morning. Maddie now has everything she’s ever wanted, but why does it not feel like how she thought it would? To make things even more complicated is James Thomas (Ed Speleers), who ends up being the photographer at Maddie’s wedding. It’s not to say that Lohan and Speleers don’t have chemistry, they do, however, there isn’t any sense of why exactly their characters like each other. Their meet-cute at the airport isn’t anything to write home about, and Maddie doesn’t seem to have any interest in James until she becomes engaged to Paul.
Maddie just comes across as a very thoughtless character, since she wishes for something that would hurt her friend Emma, and after she gets her wish, seems to regret her decision immediately and just spends most of her time flirting with James.
At times, I felt like the film was trying to capture the energy of the rom-com Leap Year, and while that isn’t the best rom-com to ever exist, at least there was proper romantic tension and some sort of character development. It’s such a shame though, because Lohan and Speleers are trying their best. Speleers in particular has all the qualities to be a great romantic lead – he’s funny and charismatic – unfortunately it’s wasted in this hollow film.
The problem with these Netflix rom-coms – the not-so-good ones at least – is that they are so intent on getting these two characters to fall in love, they forget that the best romance movies are when the characters at the centre of them feel as real as possible. Write the characters first before the romance, not the other way around. The male romantic characters also feel soulless, merely existing as this ideal man for the protagonist to fall in love with. What are James’ flaws? He’s attentive, encourages Maddie to go after what she wants, and seems to have more of a moral compass than Maddie does. He’s not real, so why should we care about this romance?
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