'Freakier Friday' is double the body swapping, but not double the fun
Two of the people involved in the mysterious swap are therapist Tess Coleman (
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Fast-forward 22 years, and Anna is now a single mother with her own rebellious teenage daughter, Harper (Julia Butters). After giving up her musical career to raise Harper, Anna is now the producer for Ella (
Advertisement
(L-R) Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Ella and Lindsay Lohan as Anna Coleman in "Freakier Friday."
Glen Wilson/Disney
Advertisement
Meanwhile, Tess has become a bestselling author of self-help books, and is still married to the easygoing Ryan (Mark Harmon, reprising his role). The elder couple are enjoying their golden years as silver-haired, spry grandparents.
Harper's daily high school Hell includes run-ins with Mr. Bates (Stephen Tobolowsky), the same teacher who tormented her mother, and battles with her British chemistry lab partner, Lily (Sophia Hammons). Harper thinks Lily is an overconfident snob with an accent; Lily thinks Harper is an American idiot. After their latest argument destroys the chemistry lab, Anna and Lily's widowed dad, Eric (Manny Jacinto) are called to the principal's office.
Anna takes one look at this hunky bad boy turned chef and her face turns into the heart-eyes emoji. The feeling is mutual.
One movie montage later, Anna and Eric are planning a wedding. Everyone is happy except the feuding soon-to-be-stepsisters. With just three days until the wedding, will these two ever find any common ground?
Cue the body swapping. Disney must have gotten the memo about the 2003 film's bad optics involving magical fortune cookies and Asian characters who spoke broken English. This film's magic comes from Vanessa Bayer's hilarious Madame Jen. She's a fortune teller who has about 17 other side hustles, including business card making and Starbucks barista.
The quality of her other gigs aside, Madame Jen is very good at disrupting family drama by spiriting the squabble makers into other people's skin. First, she interacts with Tess and Anna, who are just innocent bystanders. Then, when Lily actively seeks her fortune, Madame Jen scares her and Harper with an otherworldly chant: 'Change the hearts you know are wrong to reach the place where you belong.'
Advertisement
The next day—a Friday, of course—Harper and Lily switch bodies. Not with each other, but with Anna and Tess. Anna is now Harper and vice versa, which makes sense. Lily and Tess are reversed, which does not make sense. Shouldn't Lily be Eric?
No matter. Now that they can impersonate grown-ups, Lily and Harper hatch a plan to break up their parents' impending marriage and reunite Anna with her first love, motorcycle-riding himbo, Jake (once again played by Chad Michael Murray).
Lindsay Lohan and Chad Michael Murray reprise their roles in the sequel "Freakier Friday."
Glen Wilson/Disney
'They're ripping off 'The Parent Trap,'' I wrote in my notes. 'The Parent Trap' was a 1961 Disney movie whose 1998 remake starred, of all people, Lindsay Lohan. The plot is quite similar, which made me wonder if this film was playing some kind of meta-based 4-D chess.
Perhaps it is. 'Freakier Friday' feels like it swapped with the 2003 movie. So many scenes, actors, and subplots are lifted from the earlier film that this one feels redundant. Curtis is also playing the same beats she did last time, except now it's a grandmother acting like a teen.
I liked the 'Freaky Friday' remake. It had some real emotional heft to it, much of it due to the excellent performances by Curtis and Lohan. This time, all the characters are one-note, especially the teenagers. Despite the material, the performances aren't bad. Butters and Hammons overshadow their adult counterparts once they assume their new roles.
Curtis is intermittently funny, and Lohan gets a few big laughs playing a kid in a grown-up's body. There are also several musical numbers that are well done yet stretch the movie to just under 2 hours.
Advertisement
The "Freakier Friday" cast includes Julia Butters as Harper Coleman, Lindsay Lohan as Anna Coleman, Jamie Lee Curtis as Tess Coleman and Sophia Hammons as Lily Davies.
Glen Wilson/Disney
Like 'Hocus Pocus 2' and any number of recent Disney rehashes, 'Freakier Friday' exists so that the adults who grew up on their predecessors can take their kids to the sequels. Disney has folks convinced that this is the only way to share your love.
Nostalgia chooses a different path nowadays, I guess. Because when my mother wanted to share her childhood love of Mary Poppins with me, she showed me 'Mary Poppins.' If I were a kid today, she would have dragged me to 'Mary Poppins Returns' instead. How times have changed.
★★
FREAKIER FRIDAY
Directed by Nisha Ganatra. Written by Jordan Weiss. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Mark Harmon, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Vanessa Bayer, Chad Michael Murray, Stephen Tobolowsky. At AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 111 min. PG (nothing freaky or objectionable)
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘Stranger Things 5' Teaser Uses Haunting '70s Rock Epic to Foreshadow Final Battle
'Stranger Things 5' Teaser Uses Haunting '70s Rock Epic to Foreshadow Final Battle originally appeared on Parade. A new teaser for Stranger Things 5 premiered, and the sound editors surprisingly went for a '70s hit versus something from the '80s. Deep Purple's 'Child in Time' soundtracks the latest adventures of Will, Eleven, Mike and the rest of the Hawkins gang. The English band's epic tune runs over 10 minutes long and is in the same vein of rock as Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven.' With its haunting organ intro, 'Child in Time' pairs perfectly with the buildup to the final showdown between the kids and Vecna, despite the song being released over a decade before the Upside Down began wreaking havoc on Hawkins. Deep Purple has previously said that 'Child in Time' was written as a protest against war with a particular focus on the nuclear conflict and the growing paranoia between East and West during the Cold War. Considering that Stranger Things 5 is set at the very end of the Cold War in 1987, the song symbolically mimics the threat of a superpower's plans to try and tear the world apart. 'We created this song using the Cold War as the theme and wrote the lines 'Sweet child in time, you'll see the line,'' Deep Purple's lead singer Ian Gillan said during a 2002 interview, according to Rock Reflections. 'The words came easily because we were all aware of the nuclear threat looming over us at what was probably the height of the Cold War.' Since season 3, Stranger Things has implied that Russia plans to weaponize the Upside Down and the supernatural forces it contains. The entire plot in season 3 revolved around the Russian military using Starcourt Mall as a coverup while they worked to build their own portal into the realm. With war looming on both a literal and supernatural front, the choice to use 'Child in Time' feels like a blaring alarm that things are about to go wildly off the rails in Hawkins. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 'Stranger Things 5' Teaser Uses Haunting '70s Rock Epic to Foreshadow Final Battle first appeared on Parade on Jul 16, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 16, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Sydney Sweeney Jeans Co. Breaks Silence on ‘Woke' Backlash
The company behind Sydney Sweeney's new fashion campaign finally spoke out about the 'woke' backlash to its 'great jeans' ads featuring the star. American Eagle wrote in a brief statement to Instagram on Friday, ''Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story.' In other words, not about 'genes.' 'We'll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way,' the company added, concluding with the inclusive message, 'Great jeans look good on everyone.' Sweeney's ads with the company, which play on the words 'genes' and 'jeans' to celebrate her both looks and the pants, had been criticized for promoting eugenics, with some social media users going so far as to liken the campaign's messaging to 'Nazi propaganda.' Sweeney tells viewers in one ad, 'Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.' At a time when the Trump administration has begun dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the public and private sectors, the ads struck some as a nod toward alt-right conservatism. Meanwhile, on the right, internet comments from random people have become a fixation in the news cycle—worthy of attention from Trump's White House officials who have claimed 'Democrats' are behind the supposed 'woke' outrage. No Democratic lawmakers have mentioned Sweeney's ads publicly. But that hasn't stopped Fox News from running so many segments on the supposed outrage this week that CNN was able to create an extended montage on Abby Phillip's NewsNight program. Per CNN's Brian Stelter on X Friday, 'right-wing media outlets' have taken the opportunity to 'hype a left-wing 'meltdown' that isn't happening' to distract from revelations about Donald Trump's friendship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. A search for how many times Sweeney's jeans story and Epstein's stories were discussed on cable news this week revealed that between Monday and Thursday night, Fox News mentioned Sweeney '181 times' and only '18 times for Jeffrey Epstein.' The White House has egged on that conversation, with Vice President JD Vance telling the Ruthless podcast Friday, 'My political advice to the Democrats is, continue to tell everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive is a Nazi.' Trump's communicators director Steven Cheung insisted that private citizens' critiques of the ads are 'Cancel culture run amok. This warped, moronic, and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024. They're tired of this bulls--t.' And Ted Cruz took the opportunity to let everyone know how hot he thinks Sweeney is.
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Projections: ‘Freakier Friday' To Flush ‘Fantastic Four' At Weekend Box Office
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan's Freakier Friday is looking to end The Fantastic Four: First Steps' reign at the domestic box office this weekend. Disney and Marvel Studios' superhero tale debuted at No. 1 in its opening weekend with $115.6 million in North American ticket sales from July 25-27 and hung on to the top spot Aug. 1-3 despite a disastrous second weekend. Thanks to an anemic take of $38.6 million in its second frame, The Fantastic Four dropped a staggering 67% in business from its opening weekend. Now, this coming weekend, it appears that another Disney film, the family-friendly comedy Freakier Friday, will deliver the First Family of Superheroes a knockout punch. Freakier Friday is projected by Deadline to earn $30 million in its opening weekend domestically, while The Hollywood Reporter projects the film will open with about $28 million in ticket sales. Casting a much wider net, however, is Box Office Pro, which is projecting Freakier Friday will make $35 million to $45 million in its opening weekend. 'Weapons' Is Also Taking Aim At 'The Fantastic Four' Freakier Friday — the sequel to the 2003 hit Freaky Friday also starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan — isn't the only newcomer to the domestic box office this weekend. Warner Bros. horror thriller Weapons, starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, is projected by Box Office Pro to earn $25 million to $35 million domestically, which is more in line with Deadline and THR's projections for the film at $30 million and $25 million, respectively. So, where does that leave The Fantastic Four First Steps? Box Office Pro is projecting a $15 million to $20 million third-weekend take for the film, and clearly, their projections for its competitors are loftier than Deadline and THR. The latter two, in fact, didn't even mention The Fantastic Four in its conversation as to where it will end up financially in its third frame. No matter where The Fantastic Four ends up by Sunday, exectives at Disney and Marvel will no doubt be doing some soul searching — if they haven't already been — about how the film that was so adored by critics and big with audiences in its opening weekend fell so far so fast. One thing's for certain: Marvel Studios will be navigating some shaky ground in the coming year and a half trying to figure out how to get the Marvel Cinematic Universe back on course after its third box office disappointment of 2025. After all, Fantastic Four is the film meant to set up the return of Robert Downey Jr. to the MCU with Avengers: Doomsday, which is currently scheduled for a Dec. 18, 2026, release.
