Freakier Friday a Rocking Comedic Encore for Body-Swapping Returnees Curtis and Lohan
It’s been 22 years since therapist Dr. Tess Colman (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her wannabe rock star daughter Anna (Lindsay Lohan) swapped bodies, courtesy of some magical fortunate cookies. In that time, the former has married her sweetheart, Ryan (Mark Harmon), and the latter has become a successful music executive at Capitol Records. Tess has also embraced being a grandmother and gleefully supported Anna in raising her beloved daughter, Harper (Julia Butters), who is now 15.
Harper’s high school nemesis is British exchange student Lily Reyes (Sophia Hammons). The two refuse to see eye-to-eye on any issue, frequently getting into confrontations that have them on the verge of suspension. Which makes it all the worse that Lily’s celebrated chef father, Eric (Manny Jacinto), has fallen madly in love with Anna, who feels the same about him.
With only days before their parents get married, the teens are determined to break them up — though they just never imagined that they’d be forced to do it while inhabiting the bodies of Tess and Anna (who, in turn, now occupy theirs), after an incident with an easily distracted psychic.
With I Know What You Did Last Summer and now Disney’s Freakier Friday, a follow-up to 2003’s surprise hit Freaky Friday, 2025 is shaping up to be the year of the unexpected legacy sequel. But whereas the former made a few valiant attempts to shake things up with a handful of semibold choices about its fan-favorite returning characters, the latter is more than content to embrace nostalgia and follow a narrative construct similar to the original.
Oddly, that’s perfectly fine with me, as this new take on body switching is a lot of fun. Freakier Friday is a dang good encore, still inspired by ideas and concepts first introduced by author Mary Rodgers in 1972. Even though it offers up few surprises, there’s something wondrous about watching Curtis and Lohan recapturing that same spirited magic they manufactured almost a quarter century ago. Throw in star-making turns by Butters and Hammons, an easygoing sensibility, and a euphoric atmosphere that celebrates individuality, found family, selflessness, and unconditional love, and there’s plenty here to enjoy.
Not that director Nisha Ganatra (Late Night, The High Note) or writers Elyse Hollander and Jordan Weiss (Sweethearts) are going out of their way to reinvent the wheel. While there’s thankfully far less unintended racism — it’s nice seeing Rosalind Chao and Lucille Soong back for a few key scenes and not forced to conform to uncomfortable cultural stereotypes — the basic structure remains as late-1990s, early-2000s Disney family flick as these things get. The ageist jokes and gags revolving around teenage slang, social media, and other zeitgeist elements don’t have a ton of zing to them either, and I’m unsure how this will play with the target tween and teenage audiences.
But I still had a blast. At just under two hours, Ganatra keeps the film moving at a lively clip. The director’s handling of the dueling story sections is excellent. Perspectives shift between Anna and Tess (now in the bodies of Harper and Lily) and then back to Harper and Lilly (now inhabiting the shells of Anna and Tess) as they conspire to split their parents apart. Ganatra maintains precise control, and I never lost track of who was who, what their intentions were, and what it was going to take to get them back in one venue so the body-switching could reverse itself.
And yet, as nice as all that is — as strong as the performances from the youngsters Butters and Hammons are, and as wonderful as it is to see Lohan cutting loose on the big screen in material that actually does her justice — much like the last Freaky Friday, this sequel would be nothing without Curtis. I believed everything she was doing, and her comedic timing remains unmatched. The Oscar winner throws herself into this craziness with determined abandon. Yet Curtis also brings a stirring emotional authenticity — whether as Tess or Lily — that stabbed me right in the heart in all the best ways. She’s spectacular.
The callbacks to the original mostly work (especially brief appearances from Stephen Tobolowsky and Lohan’s Pink Slip bandmates Christina Vidal and Haley Hudson), and I appreciate that the material never treats itself too seriously or insults the audience’s intelligence. While Freakier Friday doesn’t take a lot of risks, this piece of retro family-friendly Disney fluff had me smiling start to finish, and Curtis and Lohan remain a rocking comedic duo who know how to bring down the house.
– Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: 3 (out of 4)
