Lindsay Lohan Brings Lifetime To A New Low In Liz & Dick

Once the outrage settled over the news that Lindsay Lohan would portray Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor opposite Grant Bowler as Richard Burton in Lifetime‘s Liz & Dick, there started to be whisperings, mostly from Lifetime itself, that this would mark Lohan’s “comeback movie role.” That’s not the case for so many reasons.

First of all, no one starring in a Lifetime movie of any kind is performing a comeback. Lifetime is where careers go to die, or at least remain stagnant until better work comes along. Did anyone watch David Hasselhoff in The Christmas Consultant and go, “That Hoff is making a real comeback”? No. The Soup got a lot of material out of it, and nobody mentioned it again.

Second, even if this were a theatrical release from a renowned director, Lindsay Lohan is still just plain bad, putting no effort into acting like Elizabeth Taylor. She recites every line in her own gruff, whiney tone, with the occasional half-assed attempt to sound more high-class or slightly British. Lohan portrays Taylor as a childish brat, like a teenager playing dress-up in her mother’s furs and jewels. Never once during the movie did I feel like I was watching Elizabeth Taylor. It was just Lindsay Lohan in heavy eye makeup and vintage clothes.

It was reported that Megan Fox was also considered for the role of Taylor. After watching Lohan’s portrayal, I would love to see Fox take on the role. For that matter, I think they could have just given Grant Bowler a brunette wig, violet contacts and a beauty mark, and he could have played both roles. It still would probably have been better than what we got.

Lohan is — unsurprisingly — at her most convincing when she’s downing glasses of booze and chain-smoking. She’s at her least convincing when she’s reenacting scenes in Taylor’s famous films. You’d think this would be the easiest part of the role, since all she had to do was Netflix the movies and imitate Taylor’s delivery. Yet somehow this is the hardest part of the role for Lohan; she delivers Taylor’s lines, which in real life led to acclaim and Oscars, as if she’s in a bad high school play.