Freakier Friday Review
Freakier Friday (2025) Film Review, a movie directed by Nisha Ganatra, written by Jordan Weiss, Elyse Hollander and Mary Rodgers and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Mark Harmon, Manny Jacinto, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Christina Vidal, Haley Hudson, Chad Michael Murray, X Mayo, Lucille Soong, Rosalind Chao, Vanessa Bayer, Jordan E. Cooper, June Diane Raphael and Santina Muhag.
22 years after the original remake of Freaky Friday, which was directed by Mark Waters, stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan return to the silver screen again. In the new film, Freakier Friday, the laughs are more consistent than the first time around even though this new plot has a lot more on its plate thematically speaking. Nisha Ganatra takes on directorial duties for this sequel and there are many more challenges to maintain the plausibility of the story line in this new picture than in the 2003 Waters movie. Either way, Curtis is a hoot in Freakier Friday and once again proves she is more than capable of excelling at comic timing as she works with a terrifically assembled cast for a fun and touching new motion picture.
Surprisingly, the movie’s opening scenes aren’t very good. This film speeds up the relationship between single parents, Anna Coleman (Lohan) and Eric Reyes (the earnest to a fault Manny Jacinto), who meet cute at a school meeting after their daughters, Harper (Julia Butters) and Lily (Sophia Hammons), set off an unexpected chemical reaction in a chemistry lab at their high school. There are montages to prove Eric and Anna are in love even though it’s more an example of telling rather than showing. Curtis plays Harper’s grandma, Tess, an author and do-gooder who is in a romantic relationship with Ryan (Mark Harmon) who we saw the last time around in the 2003 film.
It isn’t until about 20 minutes in that the movie picks up the slack from the lame opening scenes as a Jill of all trades/psychic, Madame Jen (the always dependable Vanessa Bayer of Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar), meets our two sets of characters–the mother and daughter, Anna and Tess, and the classmates, Harper and Lily, who soon might become family as their parents, Eric and Anna, are engaged to be married. Once the body switch happens, the movie takes off and there’s no stopping the laughs as they come a mile a minute.
This body switch, though, is anything but ordinary. There are four characters who switch personalities as Anna takes over Harper’s body, Tess takes over Lily’s, Harper takes over Anna’s and Lily takes over Tess’s body. Lily is a British snob and, soon, Tess is inhabiting that body and, as played by Curtis, the results are downright hysterical in an unapologetic way. While Hammons is the rookie here, she’s also the most interesting character in the picture so when Lily is in Tess’s body, the laughs fly in a fast and furious manner as Curtis plays it to the max.
At Anna’s entertainment job, her big client, Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), has doubts about her appeal following a viciously honest breakup with a boyfriend. Anna was once a songwriter and Ella admires her old work so when Anna and Harper swap bodies, there are some sweet scenes with Ella and the teenager Harper (in Anna’s adult body) as Harper learns just how much of a musical artist her mom once was and still is.
The real kicker here is when Lily and Harper try to break up Eric and Anna by going to see Anna’s ex boyfriend, Jake (Chad Michael Murray), who works at a record store (I didn’t know they still had stores like these). Of course, Lily and Harper are in Anna’s and Tess’s bodies which makes for some fun scenes as the teenager Harper tries to act sexy in Anna’s body to win back Jake so the wedding can be called off. The very humorous homage to a scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off comes when Harper and Lily (in their new bodies) take Jake’s car for a joyride as they look at a cute boy in the interim.
Where Freakier Friday exceeds the quality of the first film is in the emotional aspects of the script though the laughs are in higher quantity this time around as well. Curtis is having a field day here playing the young troubled Lily. As the teenager, Lily, discovers the pains of having wrinkles and arthritis as well as shopping for “old people things” at the local Walgreens, Curtis has a great time going through her comic paces here. Meanwhile, Lohan acquits herself nicely in a terrific (and, at times, subtle) performance. Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons do it up playing the “old people” with a terrifically slick set of scenes as they eat whatever they want. It’s nice for Tess and Anna to eat badly in younger bodies with very good metabolism.
Freakier Friday has tender moments that touch upon the true meaning of family in heartwarming ways. Though Vanessa Bayer has just a couple of scenes, she’s also at her best and reminds us why she is such a gifted comic performer. Musical choices are really good with throwbacks to old songs from the 2003 film’s soundtrack. While Freakier Friday‘s messy start holds it back from perfection, the concluding sequences are likely to leave audiences crying and smiling from ear to ear. This film is a touching reminder of the need for acceptance and the power of the bond found in the family construct which can help folks overcome even the greatest of obstacles. Well, at least for two hours anyway.
Rating: 8/10
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