In this 1998 Direct to Video comedy set in Los Angeles, the plot revolves around a pair of twin sisters named Emily and Teresea "Tess" Tyler (played by Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, respectively. Emily (who's passionate about surfing) and Tess (who's a member of a high-diving team) have made various attempts to help their widowed father, Max (a talented artist and sculptor) get a girlfriend. When all their initial attempts end in failure, the twins (with some help from Cody, a friend of theirs who has an obvious crush on Tess) decide to paint an advertisement on a giant billboard is situated high above Sunset Boulevard.
A woman named Brooke Anders answers the ad, and she and Max come to like each other and start dating. At first, Tess and Emily don't like Brooke's son, Ryan, but when he helps foil an elaborate scheme by Max's business manager, Nigel, to break up the romantic relationship between Max and Brooke (Nigel thinks Max's work will suffer as a result), the girls eventually accept Ryan.
Some have seen the film as a modern retelling of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, mostly because at the end of the film, every character is satisfied and happy...except, of course, for the villainous minority character.
Tropes in this film:
- Alliterative Name: Tess's first and last names both start with "T."
- Kids Play Matchmaker: Of a sort—Tess and Emily put a personal ad of their dad on a billboard, prompting single women of Venice to seek him out.
- Missing Mom: Not much is known about Tess and Emily's mother, other than she died sometime prior to the movie's events (thus making Max a widower) and was apparently really into ballet (even apparently being a professional ballet dancer).
- Precocious Crush: The twins are only 12, but Emily's got a major crush on her swim coach (who's clearly a grown man).
- Second Love: Brooke for Max.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Like usual with the Olsen twins, but also downplayed to some extent—both Emily and Tess are fairly tomboyish, but both also have some feminine interests.
- Emily's the comparably girlier sister and is also a lot more boy-crazy than Tess is.
- Tess is the (more) tomboyish one and is considered the star member of her high-diving team—she claims that it's the next best thing to the ballerina that their mom was.
