Freakier Friday Review

Instead of different Freaky Friday reboot (Disney already did that successful 2018), Freakier Friday is simply a worthy sequel to the 2003 mentation starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. The movie harkens backmost to the aboriginal 2000s glory days portion besides delivering thing caller for 2025. That’s a batch to instrumentality on, but the squad down Freakier Friday wisely ups the stakes by introducing 2 caller daughters — and truthful a full caller web of relationships — into the mix.

Set immoderate 20 years aft the archetypal film, Freakier Friday gives america an Anna (Lohan) and Tess (Curtis) who person learned their lessons aft the misadventures the daughter/mother duo experienced successful 2003. Anna has transitioned from being a instrumentalist to a manager portion raising her teenage girl Harper (Julia Butters) connected her own. While the 2 occasionally clash, their narration is obscurity adjacent arsenic tumultuous arsenic Tess and Anna’s was astatine that age. That is until Anna falls for Eric (Manny Jancito), a handsome English cook who conscionable truthful happens to beryllium the begetter of Harper’s precocious schoolhouse nemesis Lily (Sophia Hammons).

Like successful the archetypal movie, tensions bubble implicit astatine a wedding. The nighttime of Anna’s bachelorette party, each 4 of the ladies conscionable with a luck teller who gives them an ominous message. And of course, the adjacent time they aftermath up with each their bodies scrambled: Anna and Harper person swapped bodies, and truthful person Lily and Tess.

It takes a agelong clip to get to the bully stuff. The archetypal 20 minutes of the movie are an unnecessary prequel, arsenic we get the afloat backstory of however Anna and Eric met and however Harper and Lily hatred each other. It's a slog, and adjacent aft the assemblage swap happens it takes a infinitesimal for Freakier Friday to find its footing, arsenic the characters get sent disconnected connected abstracted broadside quests. But yet the shenanigans genuinely footwear successful and the movie gels unneurotic into a delicious delight.

Sure, immoderate of the jokes plaything excessively hard successful the “haha, let’s conscionable accidental this Gen Z word” direction. But for the astir part, the wit is handled well, poking amusive astatine some the aged (Parcheesi!) and the caller (pickleball!) without being excessively heavy-handed. There are immoderate precise bully throwbacks to the original, including the instrumentality of Anna’s precocious schoolhouse fellow Jake (played by Chad Michael Murray).

Lohan and Curtis anchor the film. Both of them are hilarious, each wonderfully capturing a antithetic benignant of teen trapped successful an older woman’s body. Curtis arsenic Lily-as-Tess is melodramatic and image-conscious, pretending to beryllium much assured to fell her insecurities. She glams herself up for Tess’s passport photo, pouting with articulator plumper and maneuvering a ringing light, and gleefully gets down the instrumentality of a fancy reddish convertible. Curtis’ physicality is superb and she truly feels similar she’s 65 going connected 15.

Meanwhile, Lohan has the much subtle situation of conveying a teen who can’t rather recognize wherever her parent is coming from. Harper-as-Anna has a beautiful, understated travel arsenic she dilatory begins to recognize conscionable however overmuch her parent cares for her. Separately, they’re good, but Lohan and Curtis truly radiance erstwhile they’re together, feeding disconnected each other’s energies with stellar comedic timing.

In contrast, Hammons and Butters instrumentality a small longer to lukewarm up. Part of it is due to the fact that they’re stuck successful detention for their archetypal scenes and conscionable not fixed overmuch to do. But successful bigger household scenes, wherever each 4 actresses get to play disconnected each other, they negociate to clasp their own. This disparity does marque the movie consciousness a spot uneven, but it tin beryllium explained distant since Tess and Anna person fundamentally worked retired their large narration disagreement and it’s Harper and Lily who truly request to mend their connection.

At its heart, Freakier Friday is astir the analyzable relationships betwixt 4 women. The movie doesn’t person the abstraction to research each space to its afloat extent, truthful it focuses specifically connected the narration betwixt Harper and her ma and betwixt Lily and Harper. Thankfully, those 2 pairings are developed good and are fixed capable clip to make adjacent done the changeless watercourse of comic gags. When the large affectional moments travel astir astatine the end, they consciousness astonishing but earned, due to the fact that the relationships person dilatory but steadily been gathering successful the inheritance of the hilarity.

Written by Petrana Radulovic