Amanda Lemmon is a nine-year-old orphan who is being sought after by the Butkises, a reclusive and secretive family known to "collect" kids via adoption. However, she actually wants the likeable and warm-hearted Diane Barrows, her social worker, to adopt her instead, but authorities will not let Diane adopt Amanda due to the former's low salary, unmarried status, and social worker position even though Diane wants to adopt Amanda.

While at a summer camp, Amanda meets a rich girl named Alyssa Callaway, who looks just like her. Alyssa has just come home from boarding school, only to find that her billionaire father and the camp's owner, Roger, is about to marry Clarice Kensington, an overbearing, self-centered, gold-digging socialite.

Amanda and Alyssa soon become acquainted, each longing for the other's life and decide to switch places. While Amanda adapts to Alyssa's wealthy lifestyle and Alyssa gets to experience summer camp, they get to know the other's parental figure and realize that Roger and Diane would be perfect for each other. Desperate to set them up, the girls arrange many meetings between them, hoping that they will fall in love.

Roger and Diane seem to hit it off upon meeting, as she is pleasantly surprised with his kind and humble nature despite his wealth and Roger, with her help, is able to work up the courage to visit the camp again, which Roger has not done since his first wife (and Alyssa's mother) died, due to painful memories of her untimely death.

Upon having spied Roger and Diane laughing and swimming together in the lake one afternoon, Clarice manipulates Roger into moving the wedding up from the next month to the following day, and Amanda, while posing as Alyssa, finds out that she plans on sending her off to boarding school in Tibet afterward. Alyssa ends up being adopted by the Butkises without Diane's knowledge while posing as Amanda.

Roughly two hours before the wedding, Amanda proves to the family butler, Vincenzo, that she is not Alyssa. He visits Diane at the orphanage and tells her about the switch. Diane arrives at the Butkises’ residence via Roger's company helicopter to pick up the real Alyssa and get her to the wedding. Diane finds out that the Butkises had adopted so many kids primarily to put them to work in their salvage yard as slaves. Furious, she reclaims Alyssa (disguised as Amanda) and threatens to report the Butkises to social services, giving their other adopted children hope for salvation.

Vincenzo and Amanda try their best to stall the wedding. As Roger hesitates to say, "I do", he recalls all the good times that he and Diane had together and realizes that he has fallen in love with her and cannot marry Clarice. Suddenly, Diane bursts into the church with Alyssa behind her. At that moment, Roger confesses his love for Diane to Clarice, who furiously slaps him. Clarice tries to do the same to "Alyssa", blaming her for ruining the wedding but is stopped by Vincenzo.

As Clarice storms down the aisle, the real Alyssa steps out from behind Diane. Clarice declares that there is a "conspiracy", thinking that there are two Alyssas. She tries to slap the real Alyssa but Diane steps forward in time, barking "Back off, Barbie" at Clarice, and calmly informs her that she has something in her teeth. Humiliated, Clarice moves to storm out of the church again, but Alyssa deliberately steps on her wedding gown, causing the skirt to rip off. This exposes Clarice's stockings and white panties in front of all the wedding guests, even those with cameras, causing her to desperately call for her father (who just laughs) and run away, trying to hide her panties from the flashing cameras.

An incredulous Roger learns that Alyssa has been with Diane, while he had Amanda, all this time and it becomes apparent to them that the girls had orchestrated their meetups all along, about which they are extremely smug. After some encouragement from them, Roger and Diane share a kiss and the four of them board a horse-drawn carriage, driven by Vincenzo, to take a ride through Central Park.

• Kirstie Alley as Diane Barrow, a social worker who takes care of the orphans. She especially loves Amanda and would like to adopt her but does not make enough money to be allowed to do so. Amanda also especially likes her. She also wants to find love and thinks she might have a chance after meeting Roger.
• Steve Guttenberg as Roger Callaway, a very wealthy widower. He owns Camp Callaway, which he founded with his late wife, and currently resides in a large home across the lake from it. He begins to have doubts about marrying Clarice after meeting Diane and they click.
• Mary-Kate Olsen as Amanda Lemmon, an orphan whom Diane takes care of.
• Ashley Olsen as Alyssa Callaway, Roger's daughter.
• Philip Bosco as Vincenzo, the Callaways' butler, best friend, and right-hand man as well as a secondary father figure to Alyssa since the day she was born.
• Jane Sibbett as Clarice Kensington, a socialite and gold digger, the opposite of Diane. She dislikes children and baseball and only intends to marry Roger for his money. She also convinces him that Alyssa is too spoiled and gets away with bad behavior.
• Ernie Grunwald and Ellen-Ray Hennessy as Harry and Fanny Butkus, Amanda's potential adoptive parents. Although she wants to be adopted, she dislikes them, having heard that they "collect kids" and will "take anybody" only to make them work in their salvage yard for slave labor. They have several "adopted" kids and a biological son, Harry, Jr. (Dov Tiefenbach).

Other characters edit

• Won – Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actress (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen)^[2]
• Nominated – Nickelodeon Blimp Award for Favorite Movie Actress (Kirstie Alley)
• Nominated – Young Artist Award for Best Performance by an Actress Under Ten (Ashley Olsen)^[3]
• Nominated – Young Artist Award for Best Performance by an Actress Under Ten (Mary-Kate Olsen)^[3]

The film was released on November 17, 1995 in the United States and grossed $19.5 million.

The film received an 8% approval rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10. The site's consensus reads "Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock told us that It Takes Two to make a thing go right, but this unpleasant Olsen twins comedy proves that the opposite can also be true".^[4] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 with reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 45 based on 12 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.^[6]

Kevin Thomas from Los Angeles Times called the film "a predictable but fun romp".^[7] Roger Ebert called it "harmless and fitfully amusing" with "numbingly predictable" plot and praiseworthy performances and rated it two out of four stars.^[8]

The website Parent Previews graded the film an overall B as a family-friendly one with "only a couple of bad words and a bit of child intimidation from the bad guys", and Rod Gustafson from that website called it "predictable" with a "happy ending" that children can enjoy.^[9]

• It Takes Two at IMDb  
• It Takes Two at AllMovie
• It Takes Two at the American Film Institute Catalog
• It Takes Two at the TCM Movie Database