It Takes Two

Two unrelated young girls who happen to look identical suddenly meet. Amanda Lemmon (Mary-Kate Olsen) is an orphan, and she is about to be adopted by a family whom she doesn't like, the Butkises. She actually wants her child-loving case worker Diane Barrows (Kirstie Alley) to adopt her instead. Diane would like to do the same thing, but authorities will not let her because of her low salary. Alyssa Callaway (Ashley Olsen) is coming home from her boarding school's piano recital competition, only to find that her wealthy father Roger (Steve Guttenberg) is about to marry Clarice Kensington (Jane Sibbett) a socialite who (secretly) hates kids and baseball (which Roger adores).

The girls switch places and find out that Diane and Roger would fit together perfectly. So they arrange "chance" meetings with the desired result: they fall in love with each other. After some turbulences, Alyssa (who poses as Amanda) ends up being adopted by the Butkises. She and Diane (while looking for Alyssa) find out the only reason they have adopted many kids was for them to work in their salvage yard.

When Clarice secretly spies on Roger and Diane, she decides to move up the wedding from the next month to the next day. After Amanda, who poses as Alyssa, proves to the family butler Vincenzo (Philip Bosco) who she really is at the church, he summons to have the real Alyssa picked up from the Butkises' salvage yard to stall the wedding. Once she and Diane end up at the church, Roger stops the wedding and tells Clarice that he fell in love with Diane. Furious, she slaps him and prepares to do the same to both Amanda and Alyssa but is stopped by both Vincenzo and Diane. She storms out of the church, embarrassed. Alyssa embarrasses Clarice even more by stepping on her dress, revealing the back of her underpants in front of everybody, including people with cameras. Roger and Diane both find out in the end that it was Amanda and Alyssa that arranged all the meetings between the two of them the entire time.

This film contains examples of:

 * Bitch in Sheep's Clothing - Clarice
 * Chekhov's Skill - Alyssa's talent at miming passing out first gets used when she finds out that Clarice and Roger are getting married. It gets used again during a game of Charades.
 * Department of Child Disservices: Diane's employers don't let her adopt Amanda because she doesn't make enough money yet foist her on the Butkises who turn out to have been adopting kids by the half dozen to force them to work in their junkyard. Which a neighbor mentions in casual conversation, meaning they weren't even keeping it a secret.
 * Identical Stranger - Alyssa and Amanda
 * Self-Made Man - Roger Calloway. He made his money "the old-fashioned way - pure dumb luck"
 * Servile Snarker - Vincenzo.
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl - Mary-Kate Olsen is Amanda Lemmon, an orphan who plays street ball and resents having to act lady-like to get adopted while Alyssa Callaway (played by Ashley Olsen) is like a little princess, coming home from her boarding school's piano recital competition, expecting to meet her wealthy father at the airport but it's the butler instead.
 * Wicked Stepmother - Clarice Kensington would have become one to Alyssa Calloway.
 * Would Hurt a Child - When Clarice realizes she's lost, she is only too ready to hit the girls. Only timely interference from Vincenzo and Diane keep her from doing so.