Freakier Friday Review: Lindsay Lohan Sequel Feels Like a Disney Channel Movie
It’s time to swap bodies all over again with Freakier Friday, a new comedy movie that updates the classic tale with a 2025 feel, featuring modern tech, fashion, and a Chappell Roan soundtrack. It’s been 22 years since we saw Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday, the beloved adaptation of Mary Rodgers’s novel. This sequel brings the two back as Tess and Ana Coleman. Now, Ana (Lohan) is a single mother raising a teen girl named Harper (Julia Butters). Ana meets the handsome Eric (Manny Jacinto) in classic rom-com fashion as she spills her objects on the floor and he helps her pick them up.
It’s the type of ridiculous meet-cute that feels fitting for a movie that’s so committed to being a charming blast from the past. It’s not trying to reinvent the wheel, but it’s slapping on custom rims and taking it for a joyride into modern day. Eric is the single father of Lily (Sophia Hammons), a girl Harper is having a conflict with at school. As Ana and Eric are ready to get married, Harper and Lily have no excitement about becoming stepsisters. We know this as they get into a food fight straight out of a classic Disney Channel movie, which Freakier Friday sometimes captures the magic of.
After meeting a fortune teller named Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer), we end up with more body swaps. Ana and Harper, another mother and daughter, swap bodies. Lily and Tess swap bodies as well. All of this to say that this is a movie where two young actresses act like older people and two older actresses act like young people. Antics ensue in a genuinely entertaining legacy sequel. The Naked Gun recently served as a long-delayed sequel that managed to be exceptionally funny, but it didn’t have the burden of keeping the same characters as the original. Freakier Friday keeps our old characters and blends them seamlessly with the new ones in a very literal sense.
Freakier Friday is pure joy from start to finish. Much like the first film from 2003, we have Lohan and Curtis having so much fun. Part of what made that first movie so enjoyable is that you can tell the two lead actresses are having the time of their lives pretending to be different people. While I’m glad we recently got to see Curtis reprise her other famous role as Laurie Strode in the new Halloween movies, those films are very serious and take her character down a tragic direction. Seeing Curtis cut loose and get to play a teenager in an older woman’s body allows her to make fun of her own appearance and get into ridiculous shenanigans.
This movie also sees Anna in a new place. We saw her as the rebellious teen in her youth, but she’s now the mother who aims to guide her child with therapy phrases. In some ways, she’s become the mother from the first movie, at odds with her moody teen daughter. There are many new conflicts going on between our characters, including a conflict between Anna and Tess. As Tess is now the grandmother, Anna sometimes feels like Tess intervenes with her parenting. Freakier Friday does a wonderful job of bringing in new character conflicts and allowing these to drive the story. The one between Anna and Tess feels like a natural evolution between them.
The two young girls are the two best new additions. Butters is perfect casting as Lohan’s daughter. They look alike, and Butters brings the perfect spirit here. She makes another strong impression after her previous roles in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Fabelmans. Hammons also dons a British accent, and she’s a lot of fun to watch both in her own body and when she’s possessed by the spirit of Jamie Lee Curtis. The two new characters, Harper and Lily, are not conventionally likable, but it becomes easy to sympathize with them and understand why they’re so upset with what’s going on in their lives.
Now, does the body swap work as well as the first film? Not particularly. The plus is that there’s a lot of fun in seeing Lohan, now nearing middle age, act like a teenager again. The downside is that every time our four lead actresses are on screen, you have to look deeper into them and imagine a different character inside them saying the lines. It can be a bit messy and harder to keep up with, especially as the actresses occasionally feel like they’re just having fun rather than embodying the other characters.
Also, there was something quite effective about the simplicity of the original. This time around, we have another mother and daughter swapping bodies, but they don’t share enough scenes. It also doesn’t fully work to have Lily swap bodies with her soon-to-be step-grandmother because that’s not an interesting conflict. But Freakier Friday has a lot of fun. It’s bringing back a lot of actors, including Chad Michael Murray in all his heartthrob, mom-loving glory. Manny Jacinto is also a welcome addition. The perfect blend of nostalgia and laughs can be found in the most unexpected places. With a movie that features the long-lost art of bloopers playing in the credits, what more could you possibly ask for?
SCORE: 7/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 7 equates to “Good.” A successful piece of entertainment that is worth checking out, but it may not appeal to everyone.
Disclosure: ComingSoon attended a press screening for our Freakier Friday review.
Source: Comingsoon.net