Being a Hollywood resident, I’m relieved to have survived last Memorial Day weekend, what with Lindsay Lohan terrorizing the streets and the clubs and the women’s bathroom stalls of my fair town. Thankfully, the bender that launched a thousand gossip blog posts has landed the once promising movie star in rehab; unfortunately, the role she should’ve lost in Ash’s Poor Things as a result of her stupidity will be waiting for her when she’s ready to check out of Promises Malibu.
Since Poor Things is a low-budget dark comedy starring the fussy tandem of Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis as murdersome biddies who knock off homeless men to collect on their life insurance, I can’t see how they’ll be able to extend production – which is scheduled to start soon – in order to accommodate Lohan. While a heavy workload is sometimes good for addictive personalities (Robert Downey Jr. dealt with his substance abuse issues by attaching himself to one project after another), cutting rehab short is a terrible idea, and, judging from her nonstop brushes with infamy, it sounds like Lohan should hang out at Promises for a good three months to get her head straight (and to get away from her monstrous mother). But MacLaine, who’s producing Poor Things with Rob Hickman, would rather thrust Lohan back into a world that’s clearly been a negative influence. Though I’d like to see her back doing good movies, I also know that she needs some tough lough before she’s ready to rehabilitate her career.
While MacLaine is a survivor, she’s also a bit of a kook, as evidenced by the joint statement she issued with Hickman:
"In the spirit of helping Lindsay Lohan and her rehabilitation, we have been asked by Lindsay to comply with her wishes to continue working on Poor Things. We are trying to rearrange the shooting schedule to facilitate her working at the end of the shoot to coincide with the completion of her rehabilitation. We wish her love and the blending of mind, body and spirit."
Speaking for myself, the only way to deal with that kind of nuttiness on a day-to-day basis is to roll out of bed with a forty, and keep the buzz going ’til last call. So, for the sake of Lindsay Lohan’s career and her life, let’s find someone else to co-star in this lost cause of a movie.