Film Review – Irish Wish (2024)

On paper, Irish Wish could be the perfect romantic comedy movie: after all, it has all the elements for success, at least when it comes to this genre. The film has everything you would expect to find in a rom-com: it has the fascinating small-town Irish setting, the magical element, the classical rom-com tropes you either love or hate and the typical journey of self-discovery. The recipe for a good film surely is there, but the execution is not nearly as excellent or satisfactory once the film gets started, making it a disappointing and forgetful product in the end.

The film follows Madeline Kelly (Lindsay Lohan), a book editor, as she travels to Ireland for the wedding between her best friend Emma Taylor (Elizabeth Tan) and her dream guy Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos) whom Maddie also works with as his book editor daily. While trying to put her feelings aside to be a bridesmaid, Maddie unexpectedly meets nature photographer James Thomas (Ed Speelers) as she lands in Ireland. As she makes a wish for her life to be different, she wakes up in an alternative reality where all her dreams seem to have come true, but have they really or is Maddie about to learn an important lesson on true love?

The best part of the film is the very fact that it is set in Ireland. With its beautiful scenery, the movie does give us a glimpse, if only a little one, into the Irish landscape, as Maddie explores the world she finds herself surrounded by. The inciting incident of the film is rooted in Irish culture and folklore with the wish component of the plot and the presence of Saint Brigid, the patroness saint of Ireland. However, it increasingly feels like everything we see about Ireland is exclusively from an American tourist perspective. While there are some little parts where it seems like we start seeing something of the Irish culture and setting, it is never fully explored.

The use of Irish folklore and culture could have been a lot more interesting and integrated into the movie: as it is now, the film could be set anywhere else in the world with little actual change to the plotline or themes of the movie. Ultimately, the writing and storytelling are the biggest problems of the film. The entire first act feels incredibly expositionary as the film flatly delivers all the background information we need to know to understand the film’s stakes and tells us everything that is happening in the plot, rather than showing us as you would hope a visual medium would normally do.

The characters are all walking stereotypes: first and foremost, our main character Madeline. When it comes to Madeline, we know next to nothing about the character herself except for the fact that she wants to write her own book – but we do not get to know what this book would be about – and that her favourite author is James Joyce because, of course, she is not like other main characters. We also know nothing about her relationships with anyone in the film, neither her friends nor either of her love interests, which makes it very hard to care about her or any of her romantic relationships or her future plotline as the film goes on.

Irish Wish could have been a great fantasy romantic comedic if only it had had better storytelling, structure, or dialogues. Instead, it is just mostly mediocre and rather disappointing. There are much better films of this genre out there, even if we only look at the catalogue on offer on Netflix itself as the streaming platform has produced much better and more enjoyable romantic comedies in recent years. The only thing that makes this one stand out is its Irish setting but, even then, it does not feel like it is enough to make this movie stand out or make it particularly memorable for the audience.

★★1/2

On Netflix March 15th / Lindsay Lohan, Ed Speleers, Alexander Vlahos / Dir: Janeen Damian/ Netflix / 12A