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After two decades, Freakier Friday reunites Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in the sequel to 2003's Freaky Friday. This time around, the body-swapping will involve new blood.
Hollywood is oversaturated with sequels, especially legacy sequels that revive old franchises. Some are successful. But for every Top Gun: Maverick, there's a Matrix Resurrections.
Where does Freakier Friday rank amongst those legacy sequels? Probably somewhere on the positive side, around Twisters. Unlike something like Twisters, Freakier Friday doesn't justify its existence with technological advances. Movies like Top Gun: Maverick and Twisters sell moviegoers on themselves by being more of a breathtaking spectacle than their predecessors.
Instead, it is contingent on the dynamic between Lohan and Curtis to be just as good as it was 22 years ago (it comes out nearly 22 years after Freaky Friday on the dot). To that end, Freakier Friday succeeds.
Freakier Friday takes the Force Awakens approach to its story by retreading what we've seen before with younger stars to hook a new generation.
Nisha Ganatra takes over the director's chair from Mark Waters in the sequel. While it's directed competently, there are editing flaws that compound the wealth of ideas writer Jordan Weiss has. It's as if they were unsure if Freakier Friday would garner a sequel, so they fit as much into the 111-minute runtime as possible.
Freakier Friday is uneven, but the reunion of Lohan and Curtis, mixed with the charm of the new cast members, makes it a worthwhile watch, even if it's a bit wonky.
What's Freakier Friday about?
Years after the events of Freaky Friday, Anna (Lindsay Lohan) is a thriving music manager, overseeing the careers of budding stars like Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). She still writes songs, but her artistic aspirations were shelved in favor of raising her daughter, Harper (played by Once Upon a Time in Hollywood standout Julia Butters).
Anna's relationship with her mother, Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis), is still flawed in Freakier Friday. Years removed from their body-swapping episode, they don't talk about it. Tess is an aspiring self-help podcaster, and she wants to be as involved in Harper's life as possible. So, they still clash as one undermines the other.
Harper struggles to fit into high school. She absolutely hates a transfer student, Lily (Sophia Hammons), a posh, popular student from England. They clash, leading to their parents being called into the school.
That is when Anna meets Lily's father, Eric (Manny Jacinto). They fall in love, and within a few months, they are getting married, much to their daughters' chagrin.
The movie's biggest flaw
Unfortunately, this love angle is when Freakier Friday's flaws begin to crack through the surface. The first 30 minutes of Freakier Friday are undoubtedly entertaining, even if they do not resemble what you'd imagine of a Freaky Friday sequel.
Instead, it plays like a family-driven comedy — imagine if Drake and Josh tried to break up their parents. Harper and Lily's high school ventures are interesting on their own without the body swapping. And Lohan and Curtis could be paired in any movie setting and make it enjoyable.
It's a lot of fun, and then Anna and Eric meet. Their “meet-cute” encounter leads to the principal setting them up on a date. Unfortunately, none of their relationship is seen. There is a montage that speed runs viewers through Anna and Eric's relationship.
Now, Freakier Friday is 111 minutes long — 14 minutes longer than its predecessor — and it shows. So, it would have been unnecessary to pad out the runtime even more, but a few minutes trimmed from other scenes to devote to Anna and Eric's relationship would have been nice.
It leaves viewers filling in the blanks of their love (like when on-screen siblings have to constantly remind you they are siblings by recollecting memories the viewer has never seen). It is not until late in Freakier Friday that Eric's love for Anna is palpable.
Jarringly bad editing
Freakier Friday is the victim of poor editing, not just in this sequence. The montage conveys the point, but it seems lazy. It's unclear if there were reshoots that drastically changed the plot, but it wouldn't be surprising to learn there were.
Sometimes, it's the little things that highlight the issue. There is a brief moment where Harper and Lily (who are actually Anna and Tess) are caught red-handed by Eric. He scolds them, but they're next shown sipping wine at home.
It's a small offense, but it's jarring enough to be noticeable. Within the context of Freakier Friday, it's hard to see why this happened. It seems like one scene was a reshoot that had to shoehorn its way into the final edit. Perhaps they couldn't reshoot the other one, causing the awkward transition.
The body swapping
Naturally, their parents' impending marriage upsets the teenagers, and they hope to break their parents up the week of their wedding. Harper and Lily switch bodies after a fateful encounter with a psychic (played by SNL alum Vanessa Bayer). Anna and Tess first encounter the psychic in what is the funniest sequence in Freakier Friday.
The biggest point of conflict is the family's move to England. Lily is dead-set on returning to England after the death of her mother. Meanwhile, Harper wants to stay in Los Angeles, where her friends and Gram reside.
Of course, this is when Freakier Friday finds its footing. The opening is fun, but we came for body swapping. Lohan and Curtis have a track record of being able to portray adults with teenage spirits (or vice versa). Newcomers Butters and Hammons had a tall task, and they passed with flying colors.
The swaps are not as straightforward as last time around. Anna is inhabited by her daughter, and vice versa. Tess and Lily then swap bodies as well, meaning Curtis is acting as if the posh British teenager took over her body.
Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis' performances
Luckily, Freakier Friday allows for over-acting, which is a blessing for Curtis. There's something especially humorous about seeing the 66-year-old Oscar winner acting like Lily.
Curtis' career has been uneven in recent years. The credibility of her Oscar-winning performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once is up for debate, but she seemed to care about her return as Laurie Strode in the recent Halloween sequel trilogy. Those movies got worse with every entry, but Curtis was fully committed as she is in her latest legacy sequel, Freakier Friday.
Lohan retains the same energy as her past performance in Freaky Friday. There are layers to Anna's character arc that are not fully developed. It's noted early on in Freakier Friday that she chose to raise Harper as a single mom. The who and why are never explained — perhaps being one of the many underbaked story threads to be explored in a potential sequel.
After gaining notoriety for her role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the world was Butters' oyster. She would subsequently have roles in The Gray Man and The Fabelmans, but this may be her next defining role.
The ever-defiant Harper serves as the perfect counterbalance to Anna. In many ways, Harper is a reflection of Anna as a teenager. What Freakier Friday brings is an understanding of the sensibilities of the body swaps. Harper and Lily gain more respect for the adults after working a day in their shoes, and there are things the teens (as the adults) can understand about Gen Z that Anna and Tess fail to.
Should you watch Freakier Friday?
Freakier Friday is not necessarily better than its predecessor, but it's a fun journey back into the lives of these characters. Lohan and Curtis have not missed a beat, and Butters and Hammons make fun additions to the cast.
The sequel has fundamental problems from behind the camera, though. If the insecurity of getting another sequel were not there, perhaps Freakier Friday would have been a smoother ride.
Still, there are genuine laughs in Freakier Friday, and Ganatra successfully brought this story to 2025. It's a rare, welcomed legacy sequel that accomplishes its mission of bringing the body-swapping adventure to a new generation, just as Freaky Friday did.
Freakier Friday will be released on August 8.
