Lindsay Lohan’s well-loved early comedies involve her playing characters pretending to be someone else: think of the chaotic swaps of “The Parent Trap” and “Freaky Friday,” or the social climbing of “Mean Girls.”
In “Irish Wish,” Lohan takes up another character who’s role-playing in her own life: Maddie, a diligent book editor who suddenly finds herself in another version of the world, where she’s marrying the handsome author she handles.
The story doesn’t start that way. The guy, Paul (Alexander Vlahos), originally falls for Maddie’s friend Emma (Elizabeth Tan). Paul and Emma prepare to marry at his family’s manor in County Mayo, Ireland (cue extremely green touristic panoramas). Attending as a guest, Maddie takes a fateful walk and voices her wish that she were the bride instead. Presto — thanks to Saint Brigid, apparently — she wakes up at the manor, engaged to Paul.
The movie (directed by Janeen Damian and written by Kirsten Hansen) skips over Maddie savoring the outcome of her wish, and shifts right into charming comedy around her confusion, including having no memory about how she got engaged. Maybe that’s another way of expressing that the match was never going to be a great fit. Paul is a bit of cad, and not even entertainingly awful. But hark, an alternative to this alternate reality appears with James (Ed Speleers of “You”), a photographer she meets by chance who’s forthright, sensitive and the owner of a sweet red sports car.
Maddie warms to James’s wisdom, and her wedding plans with Paul begin to unravel. There’s also a worthy subplot about Maddie’s growing independence from her phone-clingy mother (Jane Seymour), but mostly the movie is a determinedly mild addition to the Lindsay Lohan “what-if” universe.
Irish Wish
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
