Kelly Bertrand watches a (NEW!) Lindsay Lohan movie and is transported back to the glory days of her youth – it’s a Lohanaissance!
Well blow me down and then around again, I never thought we’d see the day.
Lindsay Lohan, everyone’s favourite fallen-star-turned-wild-child, back on top of the box office with the number one movie in the world. Could 2022 BE any stranger?
Her new Netflix flick, Falling for Christmas, is a certified hit with viewers on the streaming platform, with the fourth-highest opening weekend since May. Now living in Dubai where paparazzi are banned, she’s quietly tied the knot with partner Bader Shammas after he proposed on the set of Falling for Christmas. She says this year, 2022, has been the best year of her life. Not hard to see why.
Her movies were always a barometer of my youth; young and carefree at age eight watching The Parent Trap over and over and over again and wondering where the hell my identical twin might be; an anxious, nerdy 14-year-old when Mean Girls came out and I realised I would have totally worn that oversized pink shirt to school on Wednesdays because I didn’t have any ‘cool people’ clothes; 16 and moody when I wished my life was like pre-bad luck Ashleigh Allbright in Just My Luck because it’s totally plausible that Sarah Jessica Parker’s designer dress could be accidentally dropped off at my apartment.
And then it all fell apart faster than that time I tried to sew a pillowcase in textiles class – wild partying, bad behaviour, on-set meltdowns and arrests for cocaine use, drink driving, reckless driving and shoplifting. Her mugshots became tabloid fodder – a sad chart of a downward spiral driven by fame and substance abuse.
But things started to look up for the actress towards the end of 2010s, with recurring roles starting to increase, her series Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club charting her journey at owning a club in Greece, and a stint as a panellist on The Masked Singer Australia in 2019.
Moving to Dubai had a huge imact too, she told Vogue.
“It just really happened, how I moved to Dubai. I got there, and I felt a certain sense of calm.
“I think it’s because paparazzi is illegal there. I really found that I had a private life, and I could just take time for myself. I decided to stay there because I really learned to appreciate what it is to go, do my work, and then leave and live a normal life.
“It took me moving there [to Dubai] to really appreciate the time that I take for myself, instead of just going, going, going and learning to say ‘no.’ And really putting myself first, and choosing the things that I want to do, wisely, for me first.”
Of course, her husband Badar might also have something to do with it – while she is WILDLY private about her relationship, she did write on her Instagram account in July, “I am the luckiest woman in the world. Not because I need a man, but because he found me and knew that I wanted to find happiness and grace, all at the same time. I am stunned that this is my husband. My life and my everything. Every woman should feel like this every day.”
But it’s this gloriously cheesy, sappy, predictable and god-damned JOYUS Christmas movie that has the world sitting up and taking note of Lindsay again – this time, for the right reasons.
“It was really comforting to me, when I got the script, to see a movie that was a rom-com because it’s always fun to work on something light-hearted and family-oriented that makes people happy and provides a bit of an escape,” she told Cosmopolitan.
“And I was excited to kind of come back, to do something with Netflix, who is a big family in a way.”
Ok, so Falling for Christmas – look, the plot isn’t that original but what it IS is self-aware, and so is Lindsay. It’s metaphorical in some ways – she plays a spoilt rich hotel heiress with no ambition or drive, who loses her memory after a skiing accident and comes into the care of a lovely inn owner, played by Chord Overstreet of Glee fame and she, of course, goes on a journey to find herself with his help.
Sound familiar?
It doesn’t set out to reinvent the wheel – that’s not what we want in Christmas movies. We want cheesy, implausible plots with humour and fun and frivolity. Lindsay plays her character, Sierra Belmont, with a cheeky kind of relatability that lets the viewer in on the joke, too that yes, we know this is silly, but this is what we – the world – need.
She even sings Jingle Bell Rock in a delightful Mean Girls tribute after joking around with her fellow producers – and is also releasing a single for the movie’s soundtrack (I DIE).
The film is a joyful reminder that anyone’s life is able to head in a better direction (I’m talking both the movie and Lindsay herself) and everyone is capable of change.
Social media (of course) has taken notice too – comments such as ‘she seems like she’s in such a great place & it’s wonderful to see her so happy/healthy doing press for her new movie!’.
We couldn’t agree more. Welcome to the Lohanassaince.
