Irish Wish is full of awful rom-com tropes, yet I want Lindsay Lohan to find happiness

polygon.com:

As a big fan of romantic comedies, both in movie and book form, I have a shortlist of beloved tropes. Enemies to lovers? Sunshine and grumpy? Second chances after a missed connection? Love, love, love.

But I also have a shortlist of my most hated clichés. I know it’s a me thing, but I just don’t like a workplace romance where one party is clearly working directly under the other. I also don’t like romances that kick off when one party is in a relationship with someone else. Or romances where someone is pining for their best friend’s partner. And I absolutely loathe rom-coms where we’re supposed to buy the strength of a couple based on some sort of alternate-reality-slash-dream situation where literally everything else about their lives is different, and only one person remembers the details. When the tropes are the premise, there’s often no hope for me latching on.

Netflix’s new, vaguely St. Patrick’s Day-themed romantic comedy, Irish Wish, is basically built on a whole bed of rom-com tropes that I actively hate. So even though I love a Lindsay Lohan-led rom-com — Just My Luck was one of my favorites growing up, and Lohan’s recent Netflix Christmas rom-com was over-the-top cheesy in the best way — I knew the odds of enjoyment were stacked against me. But there are exceptions to every one of my taste rules, if the movie is good enough. I came in hopeful! But while I am not immune to Lindsay Lohan being charmed by a roguish Englishman played byEd Speleers (Star Trek: Picard, Eragon), the rest ofIrish Wish failed to sweep me off my feet.

[Ed. note: This piece contains some spoilers for Irish Wish.]

Hated trope crime No. 1: Lohan’s Irish Wish character, Maddie, is an editor who is hopelessly and unrequitedly in love with one of her writers, a charming Irishman named Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos). But because Maddie doesn’t have enough guts to confess her love to him, Paul meets her cute friend Emma (Elizabeth Tan) and the two get engaged instead, all while Maddie is