We open by sharing the definition of the word \u201cwish,\u201d in case the audience doesn\u2019t know what this four-letter, one-syllable word means. However, it doesn\u2019t feel the need to explicate the \u201cIrish\u201d bit of the title, giving the lovely country more attention than its plot or any of its characters. Irish Wish<\/em> was shot entirely in Ireland, including the early scenes that are clearly Dublin standing in for New York City. There\u2019s more care devoted to the landscape shots of the Emerald Isle\u2019s green hills and glassy lakes than in any featuring the actors, even though one of those actors is Lindsey Lohan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reuniting with director Janeen Damian after the 2022 Netflix holiday amnesia romance Falling for Christmas<\/em>, she gives a far better performance than the movie deserves as Maddie, a New York City book editor inexplicably \u2014 and secretly \u2014 in love with her Irish author Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos). His only merit appears to be his accent, though the actor is Welsh (and the accent is \u2026 fine). Maddie is a romance movie protagonist, so of course she is super clumsy and so selfless that she is going to attend the wedding in Ireland of her best friend Emma (Elizabeth Tan) to the man she loves without telling anyone how she feels. However, she does express her feelings aloud while sitting alone on a wishing chair, sharing that she wants to be the one marrying Paul. She wakes up in an alternate reality where she\u2019s the bride, not her friend Emma. Unsurprisingly, marrying Paul isn\u2019t quite everything she\u2019d hoped it would be, especially when she meets James (Ed Speleers), a rakish British photographer who seems to get her far more than her would-be fianc\u00e9 does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s so much about Irish Wish<\/em> that makes so little sense. None of the characters appear to be dressed for the same season at the same time, and the trio of 30-something BFFs \u2014 Lohan\u2019s Maddie, Tan\u2019s Emma, and Ayesha Curry\u2019s Heather \u2014 don\u2019t dress like any young New Yorkers would this decade. Paul is first seen doing a book reading, where he appears to be \u2026 reading the entire book, which seems like it might take a while. At that book party, Maddie has a speaker phone conversation with her mother (Jane Seymour) about her secret love for the man of the hour, where anyone who knows him could hear. We get repeated location cards for scenes set in Des Moines, Iowa, but not any of the other places. (Though, to be fair, fake Des Moines is slightly less identifiable than fake New York City or real Ireland.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet the biggest problem is that these types of Hallmark-style movies should at least have something resembling a romance, and there\u2019s so little feeling in Irish Wish<\/em>. I\u2019ve cared more about (and cried more during) actual greeting card commercials than anything in this film. Lohan and Speleers have good, if entirely chaste, chemistry, but their interactions aren\u2019t enough to convince me of their budding relationship. Their romance and the movie both feel rushed, but even at about 90 minutes long, Irish Wish<\/em> still isn\u2019t over soon enough. How I longed for a wishing chair and an alternate reality where I didn\u2019t sit through this film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Irish Wish” is now streaming on Netflix<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/irish-wish2-1024x512.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nD<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n