Netflix And Chill: Irish Wish (2024)

I get it, I do. We brought some of this upon ourselves. Streaming services making their own movies leads to a larger selection of films that feel more obviously like "content" than proper movies, but that's not always a bad thing. People want content. They will happily accept some disposable fare that allows them to spend time with familiar stars or familiar genre tropes. Something like Irish Wish is worse though, because it really feels sub-par. In fact, it feels like the kind of Hallmark or Lifetime TV movies made before they honed their craft to what it is nowadays.

Lindsay Lohan plays Maddie Kelly, an editor who has a crush on her main client, author Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos). She doesn't say anything though, and Paul doesn't appreciate her. He appreciates her friend, Emma (Elizabeth Tan), though, so much so that the two are eventually due to marry. In Ireland. That leads to Maddie sitting in a wishing chair and wishing that she was the one marrying Paul. Can you guess what happens next? Yes, Maddie wakes up to find that she is the one due to marry Paul. Paul may not really be the man she wants him to be though, and they may not be destined for a life together. There's something about the handsome photographer, James (Ed Speleers), hired to document the wedding though, and Maddie ends up connecting with him in a way that adds to the growing doubt she has about her wish.

This is the second film directed by Janeen Damian (her first was another recent Lohan vehicle in this vein, Falling For Christmas), but she has been a writer or producer on many movies almost just like this one. A lot of those movies were set at Christmas though, which allows viewers to forgive such silly and lightweight plotting. And if Irish Wish had also mixed in some festive trimmings then I would have allowed myself to be won over by this. There's none of that, sadly, which makes the script, written by Kirsten Hansen, feel lazy and charmless, and any enjoyment you may glean from this is all down to the gorgeousness of the setting and the work done by the main cast.

Thankfully, the main cast all do decent work. Lohan has to overdo her bemusement and wide-eyed sense of wonder whenever she is seeing new delights around her (in the Irish locale or in the people around her) and she does just fine with that, although I am also in line with the people out there who are just happy to see Lohan back on a decent career path after some time in the wilderness. Vlahos has to be selfish and inconsiderate, but is allowed to do so in a way that doesn't turn him into a complete panto villain, and he's a decent secondary male to Speleers, who has the charm and sensitivity expected of the man that our lead is ACTUALLY destined to end up with. Tan is fine, and is also spared from being turned into any kind of obvious villain, and there's a decent selection of little moments for Jane Seymour (playing the character of Maddie's mother, with all her scenes obviously having been filmed quickly and separately from everyone else).

I expected this to be cheesy, but I still hoped I would enjoy it. I knew it would be full of stereotypes, I knew it would be a predictable rom-com, and I knew how it would all end before it had even fully started. None of that would have been a problem if it didn't also feel so cheap (one taxi scene has truly dire greenscreen work) and forced into a template. It's a square peg in a round hole, sadly. Or maybe you could say it's a pint of Guinness served in a faded eggnog tumbler.

3/10

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