Freakier Friday review: Lindsay Lohan sequel offers innocent fun
Last year’s musical remake of Mean Girls sparked a re-evaluation of Lindsay Lohan, the Disney star whose personal life made her tabloid fodder in the noughties. Now she has reunited with Jamie Lee Curtis to make a sequel to one of her biggest hits.
Freaky Friday was a famous example of the body swap comedy, a subgenre involving two people
with opposing perspectives magically swapping bodies and comedically having to cope until they
swap back.
In the 2003 movie, Lindsay Lohan played rebellious high schooler Anna, who couldn’t see
eye-to-eye with her mother Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) until the pair changed bodies by taking magic
fortune cookies. Anna learned the stresses of Tess’ life, while her mother was reminded of the
pressures of growing up, leading them to learn to appreciate each other more.
The new film sees the two in a better place with Anna now an adult single mum to Harper (Julia
Butters), a teenager struggling with her school enemy Lily (Sophia Hammons). Tess tries to ease the tension when it’s revealed that Anna is marrying Lily’s father, only for the same magic to swap the two teenagers with the two adult women. As they struggle to find a way back, the teens get a taste of adult freedom while Anna and Tess rediscover their youth.
There are sequels that have something new to add, and then there are sequels that are content with just bringing the characters back to see what happens. This is firmly the latter. It’s difficult to know what the point of this movie is other than some surface level gags about social media and aging, but there is some innocent fun along the way.
Much of that comes from the fact that Curtis and Lohan clearly enjoy working together, and have a chemistry that gives the film some heart. Lohan can sometimes look a bit lost, but makes for a solid scene partner alongside Curtis, who throws herself into the laughs as a grandmother possessed by an obnoxious child.
Jordan Weiss’ script has some callbacks from the first film that will be satisfying to devotees, but ultimately Freakier Friday is little more than an excuse to get the band back together (literally in one scene, with the return of the fictional group Pink Slip).
What it lacks in invention it makes up for in spirit, with two leads working hard to make sure fans of the original won’t go home disappointed.
Freakier Friday is in cinemas from 8 August.