Life-Size
Life-Size is one of those movies that turns out way, way better than its premise. A girl (Lindsay Lohan) badly longing to see her recently-deceased mother finds a rare and unusual spell-book in a weird bookshop and casts a spell to resurrect her: unfortunately, the spell is disrupted by her dad’s new girlfriend who’s trying to win his daughter over with a present, a doll… hey presto, the next morning, the doll is Tyra Banks.
Sounds awful, right? Even to a Lindsay Lohan fan it sounded pretty effing terrible. But aside from the few long scenes that don’t benefit from her presence, I really, really loved this movie, and could even see myself watching it again sometime (a good thing, I guess, since I bought the DVD instead of renting). I thought that, being a TV movie, it would somehow be a lesser performance from Lohan, but there are moments here where she’s better than ever. She plays the lonely young girl dealing with loss perfectly. Tyra Banks is a little annoying at times as the doll come to life but I really loved the character – she’s a little like Buddy in Elf, a product of fantasy harshly confronted with the real world. There are some big laughs and plenty of tears. The ending really got me, and even the corny cast dance-together didn’t bug me as much as such things usually do.
Maybe not one for most people’s DVD collections, but if you want a simple, happy feelgood movie that also lets you have a good cry, plus a great performance by Lindsay Lohan, this is definitely recommended.