Lindsay Lohan can't get out of her own way on Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club

Variety

On her new MTV reality show, Lohan is "both ruthlessly aware of how she comes across and congenitally unaware of how to save herself," says Daniel D'Addario. "Much like Valerie Cherish, the fictional lapsed actress trying out reality TV played by Lisa Kudrow on the satire The Comeback, Lohan can’t get out of her own way; her idea that her reality show will convey a positive image of her rubs up against the fact that after years in Hollywood, she’s forgotten how to speak with even the basics of relatability." He adds: "Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club doesn’t know how to best deploy exactly what it has: An airy optimist who suddenly develops a Machiavellian self-interest when her spotlight is threatened, a central presence for whom putting people before cameras is tantamount to keeping them safe even after years of evidence that, for her, the opposite is true. When Lohan is offscreen, her Beach Club is an exercise in reality-TV boredom. When she returns, it’s a reminder that her late-2000s reign over tabloid culture wasn’t just a fluke. It was the culture trying to metabolize an individual whose truest and most enduring gift is her ability to endure any humiliation and just keep going, ready for what the next day, and the next blog-post news cycle, will bring."

ALSO:

• Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club could use more Lindsay Lohan, but she's more guarded in "boss" mode
• It's hard to separate the faux-real world of Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club from actual reality
• Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club tries to ape the Vanderpump Rules narrative structure, but it doesn't commit itself to maintaining it
• Lohan's real life is a more intriguing reality show than Beach Club
• Lohan says "I don't know what I meant by that!" after comparing herself to Vladimir Putin