Film Review - Freakier Friday
Images courtesy of The Walt Disney Company.
In 2003, Disney released the body-swap teen comedy Freaky Friday, starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis as a dysfunctional mother-daughter duo who are forced to live each other’s lives. Years later, the film is regarded as a 2000s classic with plenty of nostalgia attached to it. Now it’s 2025, and Lohan and Curtis are back to get freaky once more in the highly anticipated sequel Freakier Friday.
After swapping bodies twenty-two years earlier, things have finally settled for Anna (Lohan) and Tess (Curtis) Coleman. Anna is a music producer and single mother to teenage daughter Harper (Julia Butters), while Tess is a grandmother, therapist and podcaster. Harper cannot stand the snobby and obnoxious Lily (Sophia Hammons), who has moved to California from Britain and is her lab partner at school. After the pair get into a fight, Anna meets Lily’s single dad, Eric (Manny Jacinto), and much to the horror of their daughters, the two fall in love and soon become engaged. Things get even more complicated when Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer), a kooky palm reader, triggers another cosmic body swap for Anna and Tess. However, this time, it’s a family affair. Anna and Tess find themselves not in the bodies of each other, but Harper and Lily. Vice versa, Harper and Lily become their older counterparts. Having been in this situation before, Anna and Tess try to figure out how to switch back, while Harper and Lily see this as the perfect opportunity to sabotage their parent’s wedding and avoid becoming step-sisters.
Releasing a sequel to a beloved film so many years later is always a risky move, but for the most part, Freakier Friday gets it right. Elements of the body-swap concept are more heightened and ambitious this time round with more people involved, and the results are hilariously chaotic. Fans will get an absolute kick out of seeing Lohan and Curtis back on the big screen together, and both of them are clearly having a ball with each other. They totally commit to the physical and slapstick comedy, with Curtis particularly embracing the ridiculousness of it all. While Curtis is the comedic gold here, it’s also wonderful to see Lohan make a comeback after a hiatus, and she still retains the same charisma she had all those years ago. There are plenty of nostalgic callbacks to the first movie, including the appearance of Chad Michael Murray as Anna’s ex-boyfriend Jake, and the reunion of fictional rock band Pink Slip. Yet still, new elements help to keep things fresh, such as the addition of the daughters and the charming Jacinto as Eric. While laughs are obviously the focus, the film has a whole lot of heart too, and audiences will be touched by the family dynamic and character growth in the story.
There’s the occasional joke that lands flat here and there, which is usually courtesy of some slightly cringeworthy Gen Z humour. For the most part, though, Freakier Friday succeeds as a sequel and will delight fans both old and new.
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Freakier Friday is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.