[Rating: Rock Fist Way Up]
I am a child of the 1990s, so its natural to always want to embrace the modern era of bringing back shows or movies from the late 90s and early 2000s that I grew up with. I have waited a long 22 years that I never saw coming with many perils and pitfalls of one of its stars, but by gosh, this wait was worth it.
Yes, the 2003 Disney classic Freaky Friday has graced the big screen with a sequel, Freakier Friday (directed by Nisha Ganatra). Reunited are once more Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in this body swap comedy that feels more theatrically mature than many of its sequel predecessors and made me feel an overall sense of pure joy.
Years after Tess Coleman (Curtis) and her daughter Anna (Lohan) swapped bodies, Anna is now a single mother with an unruly teen daughter herself. Harper Coleman (Julia Butters) is just like how Anna was as a teen. Annoyed by her overbearing mother, and more inclined to be warmed by her grandmother, Harper would rather surf than attend school.
At school however, she encounters her new rival Lily Reyes (Sophia Hammons), a snobby posh British girl who wants nothing to do with befriending Harper. The girls get into an ultimate food fight, prompting Anna and Lily’s dad Eric (Manny Jacinto) to talk. However, this interaction turns more into a romantic flirt than what is done about academic punishment for the girls.
Soon, Anna and Eric are engaged to be married. Both daughters are furious to become future siblings, and the idea of possibly moving away from Los Angeles upsets Harper, while Lily feels her entire life is in London. Soon though, in Freaky Friday style, the worries only escalate. At Anna and Eric’s engagement party, fortune teller Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer) informs all four women that they must repair their fractured lives. And of course, what happens next?
In the morning, Harper wakes up as her own mother and Lily wakes up as Tess and vice versa. The jumbled mess of four individuals switching bodies makes Tess and Anna (in teen bodies) panic as they figure out what to do to switch everybody back. Harper and Lily (in adult bodies) however, take on the responsibilities of helping a pop singer, Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) with her own relationship problems, while also trying to sabotage the relationship of Anna and Eric, in the hopes the girls can live their own lives. What will our characters learn in the process?
I am very pleased that this did not go to Disney+. When they released the Enchanted and Hocus Pocus sequels, they felt like Disney Channel Original Movies. Freakier Friday feels like a theatrical film that has actual stakes, and doesn’t pander to constant throwbacks. Lohan hasn’t headlined a theatrical film in a good long while, but her presence is so strong here, it’s almost as if she never left from that little girl in 1998’s The Parent Trap. I was so happy to see her back where she belongs.
Jamie Lee Curtis is having almost too much fun in the role of a teenage girl, she brought the laughs to my screening of this movie. She knows this character well and has some great interactions with everybody and everything around her.
Alsom be sure to look for some wonderful little Easter eggs that are more of a throwback to Curtis and Lohan’s careers in this movie! It truly was worth the wait.
Freaky Friday is a movie I grew up with and my mother really loved, so this sequel really would have been something she would have loved seeing.
All four ladies have fun in this movie, and honestly, what more do you need?
Christian Ramos is a classic film fan, having had the dream to host Turner Classic Movies for years now. He also has a large amount of Oscar trivia in his head, remembers dressing as Groucho Marx one Halloween, and cherishes the moment Julianne Moore liked his tweet.
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