'Freakier Friday' review: Sequel's 4-way swap a busy but fun crossing
Published in Entertainment News
Rarely does a movie largely concerned with riffing on its past feel as fresh as “Freakier Friday.”
The sequel to 2003 Disney fave “Freaky Friday” — the third adaptation of Mary Rodgers’ 1972 novel about a mother and daughter who switch bodies — reunites stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan and certainly plays the hits, if you will. However, it does so while also reinventing the familiar formula and offering scores of crowd-pleasing moments.
In theaters this week, “Freakier Friday” sees Curtis (“Halloween”) and Lohan (“Mean Girls”) teamed with younger actors Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons for a four-way out-of-body experience likely to please both fans of the first flick and newcomers.
More than two decades after mother Tess Coleman (Curtis) and daughter Anna (Lohan) shared an adventure literally walking in the other’s shoes, the former is a successful psychologist who’s dabbling in podcasting and about to embark on her first book tour, while the latter, having given up playing rock music and her old band, Pink Slip, is the manager of a young, freshly heartbroken pop star, Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, “Never Have I Ever”).
After choosing to be a single mother and with a LOT of help from Tess, Anna is raising 15-year-old Harper (Butters), a surfer girl who loves living near California’s coast but struggles to relate to her mom.
At school, Harper is clashing with fellow freshman and chemistry lab partner Lily Reyes (Hammons), who’s extremely confident and VERY British and simply too much for Harper to take. When their experiment goes exceedingly poorly, Anna is called into the school, as is Lily’s widower father, Eric (Manny Jacinto, “The Good Place”).
Well, of course, sparks fly — and only six months later, Anna and Eric are days away from their wedding. Neither girl is remotely happy about this, as it remains to be seen whether the new family will stay in Los Angeles, where chef Eric recently opened a restaurant, or move to London, which may become necessary due to immigration-related issues facing the Reyeses.
As luck, if you can call it that, would have it, the four females encounter a shady-seeming psychic, Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer, “Saturday Night Live”), who proves to be responsible for a new dash of body switching. This time — and stick with us here — Anna wakes up the following morning in Harper’s body and Harper in hers, giving us another dose of the mother-daughter trade, while Lily and Tess swap vessels.
No one’s happy about this, obvi, but it’s a serious shock to the system for Lily.
“I’m DECOMPOSING!” she exclaims as she examines the face of Tess in the mirror.
The silver lining for the newly adulted Lily and Harper is that they’ll have the freedom to make moves to sabotage their parents’ union.
This story choice allows for a new dynamic for exploration by Curtis and Lohan, who are a blast together as they go about their nefarious agenda while dealing with the downsides of their new ages. (Lily, for example, is shocked when she tells her body it’s time to get back on her feet and her body doesn’t respond.)
Meanwhile, the suddenly young grandmother and mother head off to school, where they’re faced with an old, familiar foe. On the plus side, they also cruise around town on kick scooters, taking in culinary treats — and scads of calories — and are ecstatic to find their young bodies handle the gorging easily. Also, they crash the scooters — and nothing breaks!
You walk out of the theater wanting to see more from Butters — impactful as the young actress working Leonardo DiCaprio’s character on the set of a Western series in 2019’s “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood” before taking a larger role in Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” (2022) — and Hammons (“Up Here”).
Among the other “Freaky” alums worked into the story are Mark Harmon’s Ryan, Tess’ husband, who’s worried about her; and Chad Michael Murray’s Jake, Anna’s old crush, who REALLY connected to her when she was in her mother’s body. “Freakier Friday” has a great deal of fun playing off that situation.
Oh, and if you grew up with the first movie, prepare to feel old, with cultural touchstones including Coldplay and, especially, Facebook really taking it on the chin here.
Penned by “Dollface” creator Jordan Weiss, who shares the story-by credit with Elyse Hollander, “Freakier Friday” is infused with a peppy punch by director Nisha Ganatra (“Late Night,” “The High Note”). She moves us from engaging scene to engaging scene quickly, but the movie never feels too fast. If anything — and we’re nitpicking here — a few minutes could have been shaved from its third act.
Still, that final stretch of “Freakier Friday,” even while landing in predictable territory, has the potential to give you at least a medium case of the feels.
Mostly, though, “Freakier Friday,” like its predecessor, rocks out with an enchanting carefree spirit — right down to the musical-performance scene at its end.
This sequel plays the hits, yes, but it plays them with a renewed spirit.
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'FREAKIER FRIDAY'
3 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: PG (for thematic elements, rude humor, language and some suggestive references)
Running time: 1:51
How to watch: In theaters Aug. 8
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