The strange life of Lindsay Lohan

You may not have realized it, but the actress Lindsay Lohan has been quietly orchestrating a comeback over the past few years. In 2022, she signed a multifilm deal with Netflix that led to such forgettable pieces of fluff as the Oirish romantic comedy Irish Wish, and now she has returned in her highest-profile film in years, the Freaky Friday sequel, Freakier Friday. Lohan stars opposite the Oscar-winning Jamie Lee Curtis in what is clearly (and cynically) intended as a piece of four-quadrant fluff, and Disney will be hoping that the sequel recaptures some of the 2003 original’s box-office alchemy; it grossed $160 million worldwide on a $26 million budget.

Yet the appearance of Lohan, who is front and center in the film’s publicity, can only be described as something of a gamble on the part of the filmmakers, given how eventful the past decades have been for her. When she broke out around the time of Freaky Friday, the former child star – who had attracted plaudits for her role in The Parent Trap remake – looked like one of the few youthful actors likely to turn into a convincing adult performer. She showed more range in the excellent Mean Girls, released a million-selling debut album, worked with Robert Altman and seemed to be at the forefront of Hollywood. What could possibly go wrong?

Almost everything, it seemed. From 2007, Lohan’s previously gilded existence turned into a constant parade of drug- and drink-induced mishaps that included, among other things, repeated legal issues, incarceration, an ill-fated and bizarre romance with Mark Ronson’s sister Samantha, a series of high-profile fallings-out with other celebrities, a supposed flirtation with becoming Muslim and media-baiting public appearances. For a considerable period, if you were an ambitious photographer who wanted an easy story, all you had to do was to lurk outside one of Los Angeles’s many exclusive nightclubs and, invariably, Lohan would appear at 3am, under the influence of God knows what, and the pictures would duly appear online within moments.

It is fair to say that Lohan did not help herself with public statements, such as when she announced, “I am saddened to hear about the allegations against my former colleague Harvey Weinstein. As someone who has lived their life in the public eye, I feel that allegations should always be made to the authorities and not played out in the media.” She briefly announced that she was a Republican and that she would vote for Mitt Romney, only to backtrack almost immediately amid a chorus of vitriol. She moved to London in 2014, only to leave after the country voted Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum. She is now a resident of Dubai, which she has praised for “a certain calmness that I find there… There’s no paparazzi, no cameras. That’s a big deal for me.” The deeply repressive regime, one presumes, doesn’t bother her all that much. And her own father Michael, a disgraced financier-turned-television personality, announced that she had become an escort, saying “Lindsay is getting paid to date rich men. [Her mother] Dina is pimping her out. It’s disgusting.”

Likewise, Lohan’s film career turned into a series of self-parodying cameos in pictures such as Scary Movie 5 and Machete. A role that should have been a comeback, the lead in the Paul Schrader–Bret Easton Ellis collaboration, The Canyons, descended into chaos when she behaved badly on set and refused to publicize the film for fear of “jeopardizing my sobriety.” Schrader wrote a thoughtful article on the experience of working with her, in which he compared her to Marilyn Monroe and said, “Similarities? Tardiness, unpredictability, tantrums, absences, neediness, psychodrama – yes, all that, but something more, that thing that keeps you watching someone on screen, that thing you can’t take your eyes off of, that magic, that mystery.” He concluded, “It’s not a positive environment for the performer. It’s difficult to maintain self-discipline in a world of easy gratification. And it’s exhausting. As I said to Lindsay on a number of occasions, ‘It must be exhausting to be you.’”

Lohan is 40 next year. She has far outgrown the ingenue days of her youth, and, in her 39 years on the planet, has led a larger, more contentious and outrageous life than most people could manage in ten existences. If Freakier Friday is a hit – and first reviews have praised both the picture and her – then it could represent a return to Hollywood and to stardom on her own terms. Whether she now has the maturity to make a success of it or a second round of chaos and event is coming our way, still remains to be seen.