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‘Lindsay Lohan’s new film,’ I told almost everyone I spoke to for about two months earlier this year, ‘is about werewolf detectives’ Nobody seemed too surprised, given the fact that ‘Lindsay Lohan’s new film is about werewolf detectives’ functions not unlike a millennial ‘for sale/baby shoes’ about the perils of child stardom, and nobody seemed especially enthusiastic about seeing it unless it was to rubberneck A car crash – now a common metaphor for an extremely famous woman with a death wish in both life and work –compels precisely because it provokes a feeling of alarming nearness to its heat People do not hesitate to warm their hands on Lindsay Lohan’s fire, nor do they hesitate to fan its flames by pointing to her worst mistakes For the past nine or ten years, or for about as long as I’ve been writing, Lindsay Lohan has for me been a perpetual touchstone, a fact that I once explained by citing her precocious genius, and which I am now more likely to elucidate by saying she is representative of a millennial obsession with early-life promise and adult disaster Gifted children, at least judging from media Twitter, were a dime a dozen for my generation; common, too, are grown-up, deadbeat failures, numbed by drugs and bummed-out by depression The enduring and memetic popularity of famous women on trajectories that have, at one time or another, clattered downhill at tremendous speed – particularly those who happen to be former child stars, à la Britney Spears – suggests a certain vicarious thrill at the explosive way they waste themselves   What in childhood can seem preternatural or God-given in its grace seems, in an adult with a pill addiction and more DUIs than Oscar nominations, like a sick, tremendous waste In the case of ‘a great talent with a really sexy voice’ per Robert Altman, not to mention ‘a terrific actress’ in the eyes of Meryl Streep, self-destructiveness in adulthood looks a lot like taking a lit match to the gas tank of a Porsche Lohan, with her luminous good looks, her vaguely Lolita-ish adolescent vibe,