History Film / TheParentTrap

* ParentTrapPlot: The TropeNamer. The sisters however initially just want to get to know their respective other parent. Then they decide to try getting them back together.

''The Parent Trap'' is a Creator/{{Disney}} live-action film that has been filmed twice. The 1961 original starred Creator/HayleyMills and yielded three sequels which are hard to fit into one continuity (and are [[FirstInstallmentWins pretty much forgotten about]]). The 1998 remake starred a young Creator/LindsayLohan, Creator/DennisQuaid, and Creator/NatashaRichardson.

* ItsASmallWorldAfterAll: Twin sisters, separated and living in different states (continents in the remake!) end up at the same camp one summer. This gets lampshaded more than once.

* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: The father in both versions.%%ZCE -- how
* RuleOfPool: The father in both versions falls in the nearby pool when he sees the mother from afar.

* TheTalk: The first movie has Maggie cancel a very important meeting with the Red Cross because she's afraid her daughter might want to have sex and takes her for a picnic to have that woman-to-woman talks. Meredith gives one to Annie (as Hallie), albeit about using sex appeal.

%%* EscalatingWar: The prank war between the twins.%%ZCE -- how?

%%* ItsASmallWorldAfterAll: Lampshaded.%%ZCE

%%* ParentTrapPlot: The TropeNamer.%%ZCE
%%* ParentWithNewParamour

%%* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: The father in both versions.%%ZCE -- how?
%%* RuleOfPool: The father

* CriticalResearchFailure: The writers apparently didn't know much about the British school year. The summer camp the girls go to lasts eight weeks, and the post-camp portions of the film probably take up about two weeks at least. British summer holidays usually don't last that long, meaning Annie should be back at school. Since British school holidays are usually six weeks, it's unlikely she'd even be allowed to go to Camp Walden in the first place in real life.

%%* ForeignLanguageTirade:
* FourthDateMarriage: Elizabeth and Nick, both times.

%%* ShipperOnDeck: Chessie and Martin.%%ZCE

* ButtMonkey: The fiancée in both versions.

* CoolOldGuy: The grandfathers in both films.

* EscalatingWar: The prank war between the twins.

* HilarityEnsues

* ItsASmallWorldAfterAll: Lampshaded.

* ParentTrapPlot: The TropeNamer.
* ParentWithNewParamour

* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: The father in both versions.
* RuleOfPool: The father

** TomboyWithAGirlyStreak: Susan remarks she feels just "naked" without her lipstick and doesn't usually dress any more boyish than Sharon; Hallie has pierced ears and nail polish; both are adept in homemade haircuts.

* FriendshipSong: "Let's Get Together" is this for the original film.

* ForeignLanguageTirade: As noted under BilingualBonus.

* ShipperOnDeck: Chessie and Martin.

* YouTalkinToMe: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]]. When Hallie is addressed by Meredith (who she had never seen yet), she responds "You talkin' to me?" - and gets an answer: "[[Film/TaxiDriver What are you, Robert De Niro?]] Yes, I'm talking to you."

* CoordinatedClothes: The twins wear matching outfits several times, sometimes to confuse the others about which twin is which. When the mother sees both her daughters for the first time since their separation, each is dressed in yellow and white. She tells them not to do this to her because she's already seeing double and asks who is who.

* BookEnds: As part of Creator/AlanSilvestri's score, short, dramatic instrumentals of "Let's get together, yeah, yeah, yeah," accompany both the opening Walt Disney Pictures logo and the last few seconds of the end credits.

* CountryMouse, CityMouse: Hallie is the Country Mouse coming from a vast vineyard in Northern California while Annie is the City Mouse coming from downtown London. Played with, though, in that Annie adjusts very well to camping in the forest. Meredith however is a much straighter City Mouse, coming directly from San Francisco.

* WritersCannotDoMath: The summer camp the girls go to lasts eight weeks, and the post-camp portions of the film probably take up about two weeks at least. British summer holidays usually don't last that long, meaning Annie should be back at school. Since British school holidays are usually six weeks, it's unlikely she'd even be allowed to go to Camp Walden in the first place.

* YouTalkinToMe: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]]. When Hallie is addressed by Meredith (whom she had never seen yet), she responds "You talkin' to me?" - and gets an answer: "[[Film/TaxiDriver What are you, Robert De Niro?]] Yes, I'm talking to you."

* IdenticalTwinIDTag: The twins start off easily identifiable by their hairstyles, clothing and accents. Throughout the course of camp, they alter their appearances so that they are identical. In the remake, the only way to tell them apart in the third act is by the accents.

* YouTalkinToMe: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]]. When Hallie is addressed by Meredith (who she had never seen yet), she responds "You talkin' to me?" - and gets an answer: "[[Film/TaxiDriver What are you, Robert De Niro?]] Yes, I'm talking to you."

* YouTalkinToMe: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]]. When Hallie is addressed by Meredith (who she had never seen yet), she responds "You talkin' to me?" - and gets an answer: "What are you, Robert De Niro? Yes, I'm talking to you."

* YouTalkinToMe: [[Parodied ParodiedTrope]]. When Hallie is addressed by Meredith (who she had never seen yet), she responds "You talkin' to me?" - and gets an answer: "What are you, Robert De Niro? Yes, I'm talking to you."

* AlwaysIdenticalTwins

* DivorceIsTemporary: The twins actively invoke this.
* DontSplitUsUp

* GuessWhoImMarrying

* {{Identical Twin ID Tag}}s

* SeparatedAtBirth

* TwinSwitch

* AuthorAppeal: As in many Nancy Meyers movies, the setting is California. Notable because in the original, the story alternated between Boston and California -- and Boston is replaced with London in the remake.

* BritishStuffiness: One of the twins is American and the other is British. Guess which is the proper one and which is the spunky one.

* GoneSwimmingClothesStolen: The StripPoker payoff at camp.

* OldManMarryingAChild: Used as an indirect accusation, delivered with SugaryMalice. When Nick tells his daughter that Meredith is about to become part of the family, she surely understands right away that he's talking about marriage. However, she pretends to innocently misunderstand him and get all ecstatic about how he's finally getting one more daughter by adopting her. Annie (pretending to be Hallie) immediately asks Meredith her age and points out that she's only fifteen years older.
** A similar line happens in the original version ("I always wanted a sister!") but doesn't have the same insinuation as that version of the fiancée clearly looked like an adult.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Happens to both Hallie and Annie, more often to whoever has a British accent at the moment. Often it's the In-Character version of the trope. Lohan had to play four accents -- American, British, American pretending to be British, and British pretending to be American. The latter two had accents slipping. Lohan does a remarkable job in the scene at the hotel where she's basically playing four characters at once -- Hallie, Annie, Hallie pretending to be Annie and Annie pretending to be Hallie. She switches up the accents just enough to do exactly what Hallie and Annie were after (confuse the heck out of Mom and Dad).

* WritersCannotDoMath: The summer camp the girls go to lasts eight weeks, and the post-camp portions of the film probably take up about two weeks at least. British summer holidays usually don't last that long, meaning Annie should be back at school.

* AdaptationalVillainy: In the original book, the father's fiancée is clearly an unsympathetic antagonist, but hardly a villain - she seemed to genuinely like the girls' father (even if attracted to his fame as well), wanted to have her own children with him and only planned to get rid of his daughter (by sending her to boarding school) after the latter came to her house to openly object to their marriage. The fiancée didn't actually get to do anything villainous. However, in both movies she's portrayed as ChildHater and GoldDigger (in the original, she's in fact much richer than her would-be husband) who WouldHurtAChild.

* {{Disneyfication}}: The original story (and original German adaptation) was far more serious than the Disney movies--the father was distant, the mother was a wreck, and one twin falls ill.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: The father in both versions toward his gold digger fiancé. She is extremely rude to not only the girls, but also his ''housekeeper.''

* OffToBoardingSchool: What would have happened if the fiancee married the father.

* RemakeCameo: Joanna Barnes played Vicki Robinson (the fiancee) in the Hayley Mills version and Vicki Blake (the fiancee's mother) in the Lindsay Lohan version.
* RichBitch: The fiance in both versions. She serves the role as GoldDigger and ChildHater.

* AdultsAreUseless: The Marvas are strangely absent for a lot of scenes where their discipline would be required - especially with the stunt where Hallie and friends had their beds put on the cabin roof. There's also a rather suspicious lack of other counsellors around.
* AuthorAppeal: As in many Nancy Meyers movies, the setting is California. Notable because in the original, the story alternated between Boston and California - and Boston is replaced with London in the remake.

* MadonnaWhoreComplex: Done subtly. Elizabeth - the wholesome mother - is given a more earthy look, with soft make-up and modest clothes. Meredith - the vampy evil girlfriend - is done up in sexier clothes, with more fashionable hair and make-up. Further underlining things is the colours they wear in the first scene they appear in together - Elizabeth in [[WomanInWhite white]] and Meredith in black.

** A similar line happens in the original version ("I always wanted a sister!") but doesn't have the same insinuation as that version of the fiancee clearly looked like an adult.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Happens to both Hallie and Annie, more often to whoever has a British accent at the moment. Often it's the In-Character version of the trope. Lohan had to play four accents -- American, British, American pretending to be British, and British pretending to be American. The latter two had accents slipping. Lohan does a remarkable job in the scene at the hotel where she's basically playing four characters at once - Hallie, Annie, Hallie pretending to be Annie and Annie pretending to be Hallie. She switches up the accents just enough to do exactly what Hallie and Annie were after (confuse the heck out of Mom and Dad).

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Maggie is always barefooted in the house of her ex-husband. In what is probably a ShoutOut, the remake has Lizzie walk barefooted outdoors, but only a few steps.

* FirstFatherWins: Gender Inverted. Both Creator/MaureenOHara and Creator/NatashaRichardson get back the guy, while the GoldDigger runs off in defeat.

* FirstFatherWins: Gender Inverted. Both MaureenOHara and NatashaRichardson get back the guy, while the GoldDigger runs off in defeat.

* FieryRedhead: The first movie has the [[MaureenOHara Mother]] and Sharon's camp friend Ursula. The second movie has both Annie and Hallie, especially at camp.

The movie is based on a 1949 book, ''[[Literature/LottieAndLisa Das doppelte Lottchen]]'', which has also been filmed as ''Das doppelte Lottchen'' (a version that retains author Erich Kästner as narrator and uses actual twins), ''Twice Upon a Time'' and ''Hibari’s Lullaby'' (a Japanese telling).

* AdaptationalVillainy: In the original, the father's fiancée is clearly an unsympathetic antagonist, but hardly a villain - she seemed to genuinely like the girls' father (even if attracted to his fame as well), wanted to have her own children with him and only planned to get rid of his daughter (by sending her to boarding school) after the latter came to her house to openly object to their marriage. The fiancée didn't actually get to do anything villainous. However, in both movies she's portrayed as ChildHater and GoldDigger (in the original, she's in fact much richer than her would-be husband) who WouldHurtAChild.

* {{Disneyfication}}: The original story (and original adaptation) was far more serious than the Disney movies--the father was distant, the mother was a wreck, and one twin falls ill.
* DontSplitUsUp

* {{Disneyfication}}: The original story was far more serious than the Disney movies--the father was distant, the mother was a wreck, and one twin falls ill.

* AdaptationalVillainy: In the original, the father's fiancée is clearly an unsympathetic antagonist, but hardly a villain - she genuinely liked the girls' father, wanted to have her own children with him and only planned to get rid of his daughter (by sending her to boarding school) after the latter came to her house to openly object to their marriage. The fiancée didn't actually get to do anything villainous. However, in both movies she's portrayed as ChildHater and GoldDigger (in the original, she's in fact much richer than her would-be husband) who WouldHurtAChild.