“Last time we convinced everyone that we were each other until we switched back.”
Legacy sequels are all around us. Yes, I should have saved that line for when the Love, Actually! sequel gets made, but why not? I don’t have the same gripes that others do with legacy sequels. From my perspective, I think that if a sequel has been in development since before the notion of legacy entered the conversation, then they have every right to be made. Just like any movie, some sequels are successful, while others are not. This one is not. If it weren’t for the fact that we are in the midst of a Jamie Lee Curtis renaissance at the moment, this would have been quickly ushered to streaming, where it could join Lohan’s other recent efforts. While I’m a big proponent of the theatrical experience and audiences getting to discover new movies for the first time on the big screen, it’s just not where Freakier Friday belongs.
In Freakier Friday, Anna Coleman (Lohan) is successfully juggling a career, her relationship with mother Tess (Curtis), and an upcoming wedding to Eric (Manny Jacinto). The only problem? Harper (Julia Butters) and Lily (Sophia Hammons), Anna and Eric’s teenage daughters from previous marriages, who can’t stand each other. As the wedding approaches, things look hopeless until Anna, Tess, Harper, and Lily wake up one morning to find that they’ve each swapped bodies with one another. Despite their differences, the four of them will have to work together, convincing everyone they encounter that they’re who they say they are until they can all switch back.
There’s a myriad of reasons why Freakier Friday just doesn’t work; the pacing is turbulent, there’s not enough laughs (beyond base ones), and the plot feels overstuffed thanks to there being just too many people to write for. It feels like, at one point, director Nisha Ganatra and her trio of writers abandoned their movie’s throughline and started constructing scenes that have no reason to be in this movie. It’s because of this that we’ve got a photoshoot that makes no sense and a rendezvous at the beach in the middle of everything so that the characters go surfing. The worst of the bunch is a painfully unfunny scene that sees Lohan flirting for her life, which is so tragic, it’s hard to even look at the screen. These and other moments occur not to advance the plot, but because those behind the camera thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny to watch these characters do these things?’ If there were plot-driven reasons for these scenes to exist, I’ve forgotten them. That alone is a pretty big problem.
Believe it or not, Freakier Friday does have some virtues. There’s a real exuberance that can be found in the main script, even at its sloppiest. The movie has an undeniable joy and an energy that (along with some strategically-placed needle drops) saves this from being a total dismal time at the movies. That feeling of exhilaration extends to the main cast, with everyone going for broke. This may sound like false praise, but when everyone is having the same kind of fun in front of and behind the camera, it’s easy to tell and goes a long way with the audience. Of course, some new characters can’t hurt. Eric is a sweet and appealing counterpoint for Anna, and the two do have some good moments together. Meanwhile, Vanessa Bayer is definitely the movie’s highlight as a kooky psychic. It’s just a flat-out shame that the powers that be couldn’t find a way to work her into the script more. As much as there’s much to fix with Freakier Friday, everyone seems happy to be exploring something no one thought would ever be explored.
These days, Curtis will say yes to almost anything. That’s not a bad thing…for her. To have as many opportunities as she’s being given at the moment has to be a gift for the actress; at least that’s what her spirited performance shows. Even though the script sees Tess as less of a character and more like an excuse to throw Curtis into one Laugh-In-style sketch after another, she’s game, and never not boring to watch. Lohan, on the other hand, feels like she’s playing dress-up where Anna is concerned, not fully selling us on the transformation her character has undergone. Still, the chemistry she shares with Curtis is a winning one.
It’s a shame that most of the rest of the cast doesn’t come off as well. Apart from a lovely turn from Jacinto and a funny one from Bayer, Freakier Friday leaves everyone else stranded. Butters and Hammons have very little to do but play tired teenage girl cliches, while returning cast members Chad Michael Murray and Mark Harmon struggle to find a reason to even be in the movie. At least Harmon has slightly more to do this time around besides raising his eyebrows in confusion like he did in the last outing.
I know at this point I will have been called a grump, but I promise I’m not. I’m biased. Although I was born several years later, I grew up with the original Jodie Foster Freaky Friday, which was charming, wholesome, and everything you wanted a movie based on that premise to be. For me, it remains the premier Freaky Friday. While it’s fully okay to pretend that the 90s TV version with Shelley Long doesn’t exist, there wasn’t much reason I could find to bemoan the 2003 remake, which I saw only once. I liked that movie, but one time was enough. Unfortunately, the sequel doesn’t follow suit. The movie sadly plays most of its hand in its advertising while never living up to what it promises. That, coupled with a publicity tour that features Curtis and Lohan taking part in far more engaging stuff than this movie’s script has them doing, one time is not even necessary.
