Releasing a sequel more than two decades after the original – with the same stars, no less – is not a common practice, and it’s certainly a risky endeavor. But when the premise is a body swap that includes countless jokes about being young and getting old, time doesn’t mean as much as it might in other cases. Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis return for a comedy that welcomes a new generation in to its humor-laced sorcery and has a blast using its lead actresses to poke fun at themselves.
A lot has changed since Anna (Lindsay Lohan) and her mother Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) switched bodies. Anna is now a mom herself to Harper (Julia Butters), who loves to surf and give her mother attitude, and she’s working in the music industry propping up other stars. Tess has written a book and is trying to start a podcast, provided she can handle the technology. When Harper gets into a fight with her classmate Lily (Sophia Hammons) at school, Anna meets Lily’s father Eric (Manny Jacinto) and they quickly fall in love. Determined to stop the marriage of their parents so that they don’t have to see each other anymore, Harper and Lily find themselves in a much trickier situation when a new body swap mixes up Anna with Harper and Tess with Lily.
Believing the premise of this film and its predecessor has never been critical, and it’s absolutely played for laughs here with a fortune teller (Vanessa Bayer) who has many business and business cards (one of which is to advertise her business card business) and doesn’t even think that what she’s doing is going to work. It’s a plot device that has to happen given the setup of the film and audience expectations, but it almost feels unnecessary since watching these characters as themselves is already sufficiently engaging. That is to say, this movie is solid enough without its gimmick, but that’s of course where the fun begins.
Harper and Lily are teenagers who think they know everything and that their parents couldn’t possibly understand them, which audiences will surely know isn’t true. But watching them slowly figure that out, and gasp in horror as they discover that the adult bodies they’re inhabiting don’t function the same way theirs do, is undeniably entertaining, as is their worldview, which includes Lily concluding that Tess’ husband Ryan (Mark Harmon) is really old, as in somewhere between fifty and one hundred. It’s just as amusing to watch Anna and Tess delight in the youthful bodies into which they’ve been transplanted, eating everything they can because of fast metabolisms and marveling at simple pleasures they’ve long since forgotten.
The cast here is having a blast, and it’s an infectious experience that will be passed on to eager audiences, especially those who enjoyed the first film and can’t wait for this reunion of Lohan and Curtis. Both have endured major changes in their careers since 2003, with Lohan returning to a lead feature film role for the first time in a while – a wondrous thing given that her very real talent has always been unduly overshadowed by personal drama – and Curtis still basking in the afterglow of her Oscar win for Everything Everywhere All at Once. They’re both delivering more mature performances that as a result become all the sillier when they’re playing children trying to figure out how to pretend to be adults.
The children, to their credit, are fantastic. It’s no surprise given Butters’ breakthrough role at the age of ten in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and she proves that wasn’t a fluke but the start of something great. Watching her opposite Lohan is particularly rewarding, and she’s well-matched by Hammons, who has just a few credits but who brings a tremendous amount of personality to Lily and Tess. There’s no reason that these two couldn’t anchor another film sometime in the future given that they’re just as competent and funny as their more established costars.
Freakier Friday isn’t meant to be an intellectual film, and it definitely leans into its less sophisticated moments. But that’s why audiences bought a ticket in the first place, to turn their brains off to enjoy a body swap comedy whose rules and specifics don’t matter since the point is to have fun. There are enough nods to the 2003 original that will keep diehard fans happy, while those completely unfamiliar with it should still thoroughly enjoy this sequel, which explains just enough about what happened to clue anyone in who feels like they need more background. Freakier Friday is exactly what a sequel 22 years in the making should be and nothing more, but that’s more than enough to provide some solid, lighthearted entertainment for moviegoers of all ages.
Movie Rating: 7/10
