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a day ago
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‘Freakier Friday' Director Nisha Ganatra Might Have Cracked the Code on the Studio Comedy
Over the course of her directing career, Nisha Ganatra has tackled nearly every stripe of comedy, from cute romances to wacky workplaces, mistaken identities to screwball send-ups. From films like 'Chutney Popcorn' and 'Late Night' to a truly staggering array of TV directing gigs ('Girls,' 'And Just Like That,' 'Dear White People,' 'Last Man on Earth,' 'Dollface,' 'Deli Boys,' and that's only a small sample), Ganatra knows funny. Over the course of her last three films, however, Ganatra has hit upon something of a compelling niche, a kind of old-fashioned comedy about women trying to make their way through the world, often coming up against generational mishaps and misunderstandings, and emerging all the better for it. More from IndieWire You Hate AI. They Teach It Anyway. Spike Lee's 'Highest 2 Lowest' Reinvents Kurosawa in the Canyons and Subways of New York All of that and, yes, still funny. When I pointed out this theme in 'Late Night,' 'The High Note,' and her latest release, this week's much-anticipated 'Freakier Friday,' the already effervescent filmmaker really sparked. 'I miss those old Mike Nichols movies where it's just smart women being smart and having ambitions, and not fighting over a guy, but just wanting something out of life,' the director told IndieWire. ''High Note,' 'Late Night,' 'Freakier Friday,' it's all that, all these women have their dreams and what they want and how they want the world to be, and how they want to remain each other's allies. But it's a struggle and they have to figure it out and they have to get there together.' It's easy to see why Ganatra would gravitate toward 'Freakier Friday' then, which picks up more than twenty years after the Jamie Lee Curtis- and Lindsay Lohan-starring original, and is once again concerned with seeing women (now, four!) navigating their lives and supporting each other, all while also being body swapped. Understandably, Ganatra was a huge fan of Mark Waters' 2003 original, 'Freaky Friday.' 'I loved it so much, and not just as someone who thought they were Lindsay Lohan and watched Lindsay Lohan and wanted to be Lindsay Lohan and maybe formed a band thinking they could be like Lindsay Lohan and then realized they could not be ever like Lindsay Lohan in a band,' she said with a laugh. When producer Kristin Burr first gave Ganatra the script for 'Freakier Friday' in 2024 (after years of fans demanding a sequel), she added a little caveat. 'She said, 'OK, well, your first step is to go meet Jamie Lee Curtis and see if she thinks you're right,'' the director recalled. 'And I was like, 'Oh, my God. OK!' So I drive to Jamie Lee Curtis' house, which is just a surreal sentence to come out of my mouth. I meet her and I was so nervous, and she's such a movie star, she's so good at instantly making you feel like you're at home and she's your best friend.' Another thing that might have eased those initial nerves? The verve with which Curtis talked about the material. Mostly, that first interaction didn't sound like an interview, but a space to swap ideas. 'She told me all the things she thought made the first one special and work, and why she wanted to do this one,' Ganatra said. So what did Curtis love so much about the original? 'She loved the energy of being of the body swap, of course,' the director said. 'She had a very strange moment of telling me that she was not good at physical comedy. I did not believe her for a minute, because I was like, 'Didn't I see you on 'A Fish Called Wanda'? Haven't I seen you in 'True Lies'?' Cut to [filming the movie], 'Hey, Jamie, in this scene I thought you could crawl on the ground to hide from Chad [Michael Murray].' She's crawling on the ground. 'OK, in this scene you are gonna stop Manny from taking off by stepping in front of the car,' and she jumps on the hood of the car. She is 1,000% dedicated with her character, and I think that's what's so compelling. You can't take your eyes off of her because she's so unpredictable and so fearless that, as an audience, you're on the edge of your seat being like, 'What's she gonna do?'' The film arrives twenty-two years after the 'Freaky Friday' hit theaters in the summer of 2003, making a mint in the process (over $160 million worldwide) and apparently inspiring legions of devoted fans, including Curtis and Lohan. That fanbase? It surprised even Ganatra. 'Jamie willed this into existence, and from all the fans who willed it into existence by asking her,' she said. 'But I was surprised too. I knew millennials love-love-loved it, I knew Gen X loved, but I didn't think Gen Z knew the movie as well as they do. Gen Z is the generation that is being most misrepresented and sort of treated poorly in pop culture right now, so it was really important to me to get it right for Gen Z, not just because you'd never want Gen Z coming at you, but also because Gen Z has been so maligned.' And, yes, 'Freakier Friday' includes not one, but two Gen Z stars in Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons. This time around, Curtis' Tess Coleman is now a grandmother, and while she adores 'co-parenting' daughter Anna's (Lohan) precocious teenager Harper (Butters), Anna is struggling to find her own footing as a parent. When she falls in love with handsome new dad Eric at Harper's school (Manny Jacinto), things are looking up, but, what's that? Eric has a daughter too? And she (Hammons) and Harper hate each other? Body-swapping and life lessons, ahoy! If both Tess and Anna get (lovingly) dinged for their respective ages and all the generational stuff that comes between them, so too do the girls. Our first introduction to Harper? A sign on her bedroom that demands 'NO TRIGGERING.' How, I asked Ganatra, do you find the line between 'we're going to make fun of you too' but 'we also want you to to laugh'? 'It's always such a hard thing to explain it tonally, how do you ride that line between what's OK and what seems mean?,' she said. 'None of the humor can or should seem mean-spirited, especially in a movie like this. But for Gen Z, it was about acknowledging how smart they are and how they do really care. I do think Gen Z is gonna save us in many ways, because they truly care about trying to fix all the problems.' Ganatra applies that same sense of care to her work. Consider how tough it it is to actually make a body swap comedy work, the many perspectives that need to be considered, the points of view that need to be telegraphed, the insane performance that goes into playing somebody who is also playing somebody self. That's not easy. 'I think sometimes people are like, 'Oh, studio body swap comedy, blah, whatever,' but when you watch them, you realize it's pretty sophisticated what these actors are doing,' she said. 'They're not only playing their character, but they're also playing another character inside of their character. And if you don't believe that, the whole movie stops working instantly, right? That moment when they switch, if you don't buy that, your movie's done. It wasn't directing four actors, it was directing eight characters. So, how do I get that essence and this essence and make the most comedy joy from the experience of being in each other's lives?' For Ganatra, such considerations are part and parcel of being a good comedy director, something she does not take for granted (or for silly). 'I'm super-biased in that I think comedy people can do anything, I think comedy people can do drama, but I don't think drama people can necessarily do comedy,' the director said. 'At some point, it comes down to your taste and what you think is funny and what you don't. I think it's a matter of creating an environment where everyone feels free to pitch everything and you shoot everything. I've been wrong so many times, so you shoot everything as if you're right, and then you shoot everything as if you're wrong, and then you have the best to choose from.' Ganatra pointed specifically to another important woman in her life: her long-time editor Eleanor Infante. 'She doesn't hesitate to say, 'Hey, that doesn't work' or 'That's not funny' or 'No, we're not doing that.' When I was at NYU, I got the privilege of sitting in the editing room with Thelma Schoonmacher and Martin Scorsese, and I watched how he has to fight for every single shot that he gets. You're like, 'What's happening? Who is this woman telling Martin Scorsese that his shot his garbage?' And then you realize why the movie comes out the way it does. I'm really lucky I have an amazing editor who will tell me the truth.' Still, maybe making good comedy comes down to something deceptively simple: truly looking for what's funny. 'I think we had a lot of fun because we were all trying to make each other laugh,' Ganatra said. 'Every scene, everyone was trying to top each other with more and more fun and more and more joy. We just had a great environment, a really supportive environment where everyone let us do our most bananas ideas.' While the film is packed with both original ideas and callbacks to the original (a Pink Slip concert was a must-include for the film's producers from the start, while a final scene involving Chad Michael Murray's character was a product of the actor being available for an extra day and Ganatra really wanting to make the most of it), lots of on-the-fly ideas borne of affection for the original also make the cut. Comedy works best if you're trying something new, and you can really only do that if everyone is down to, well, clown. The filmmaker pointed to an uproarious scene in the film in which Curtis and Lohan show up at Murray's character's record store. As Lohan (as Harper as Anna) tries to rekindle the flame with Murray's Jake, Curtis (as Lily as Tess) attempts to offer advice while also hiding her face behind a slew of different records. 'I was like, 'OK, Jamie, I think you should get around the record store by covering yourself up in each place,' and she was like, 'OK, which records am I using?,'' she recalled. 'I was like, 'Well, here are the six I have cleared, and I think Sade should be when you're telling her to be quiet, and this person should be for this. And she's the one who was like, 'Oh, Britney [Spears] should be the one while I'm yelling at her and giving her advice,' which then inspired our editor to put in a Britney song, and then we just had so much fun with it. I can't believe I didn't think of that one. That was just a lucky Jamie moment on set.' She'd like more of them. As she readies for the release of the film, Ganatra was clearly still riding a wave of giddiness, one that she hopes to parlay into doing, well, more of this. 'It made me happy, so I just hope I get to keep doing it,' she said. 'A lot of women don't get to direct studio films and that is something I don't take for granted. So I'm just hopeful that this dream doesn't end and I get to keep making movies, because that's something I think we all want to do, express ourselves. I'm hopeful that this does well and we all get a chance to do it again.' A Walt Disney Pictures release, 'Freakier Friday' is in theaters on Friday, August 8. 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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Freakier Friday' director Nisha Ganatra was sneaking into film classes, now she's directing Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis
Eh Listers: Nisha Ganatra Director, writer and producer Nisha Ganatra has taken on the sequel of the 2003 Freaky Friday story with the release of Freakier Friday (now in theatres). But the legacy was put in the best possible hands with Ganatra, who grew up in in Vancouver, an expert in blending genres across film and TV, executing very specific and thoughtful visions for projects from Girls to Deli Boys, Dear White People, And Just Like That..., and the movie Late Night. A through-line for several of Ganatra's projects is the theme of identity. The brilliant filmmaker is able to explore that theme through a variety of genres. But Ganatra's career path wasn't linear. While she was in university, with the intention of becoming a lawyer, she started sneaking into film classes. Advertisement "I had immigrant parents who are pretty, just traditional, so I didn't really assume there was any other path," Ganatra told Yahoo Canada. "And then my roommate in college, I was so lucky, she's the one who was like, 'Hey, you seem to be really into this other stuff. You might want to take a look at it.'" "I was like, there's no career there though. And so she's the one that helped me go to the intern board and get some career advice. ... But it's still such a dream. I really can't believe I get to do this every day. It's still pretty incredible." Ganatra made the transition to the famed New York University (NYU) film school, where one of her instructors was Spike Lee. "Spike Lee was always like, 'Make a feature.' ... He encouraged me to make my first feature while I was in school, because he said, you go out there and if it's terrible, then it was your student film, you have another chance," Ganatra said. "If it's good, then you say that's my first feature, and you start your career and get going." Advertisement "I think the advice from NYU was just hustle, hustle, hustle, and make sure the story you're telling is worth telling, because you don't want to waste people's time, both making the film and watching the film." Ganatra stressed that another core lesson she learned is to ask of every project: "Why am I telling this story?" "I think that's why, it's such a strange thing to say, but Freakier Friday feels like a very personal movie, even though it's a big, giant studio comedy, it still feels like I get to say a lot about being a single mom and parenting and intergenerational love between women, and it's very exciting to have that. And I think that came from my NYU days," she said. Yahoo Canada's Eh Listers is an interview series with women and non-binary Canadians in film and television, looking back on their careers with unfiltered stories about their greatest projects. Chutney Popcorn Chutney Popcorn — 1999 Ganatra's first feature, Chutney Popcorn, was screened to an enthusiastic crowd at the 2000 Berlin film festival, receiving a standing ovation. The incredibly entertaining, endearing and witty movie is a must-watch. Advertisement Ganatra herself plays the character Reena, in addition to directing and writing the film while she was a student at NYU. "It might have just been not knowing any different, but there weren't that many Indian-American actresses at the time, and the one I had written it for, her parents wouldn't let her play a lesbian, so it was this mad dash to try to find somebody to play that part," Ganatra shared. Reena lives in New York with her girlfriend Lisa (Jill Hennessy), but when Reena's sister Sarita (Sakina Jaffrey) finds out she can't conceive a child, Reena volunteers to be a surrogate for her sister. "I think that movie was made with the love and sweat of all my classmates, and the community that came together to help us," Ganatra said. "The lesbian community in New York really turned out, lent us a motorcycle, somebody came and knew how to do lighting. It was all just like, 'Hey, do you know kind of how to do this? Cool, you're on the crew now.' ... So I think that experience of making something so community and so collaborative was informing for the rest of my life." Advertisement "I remember when we were cutting that movie and we had been given an editing room that we could use off hours, so we would edit from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. And my editor, somebody came in to visit, to watch a cut and give us advice, and they were like, 'You two will never have it this good again.' ... And now I get it. What they were talking about was total creative control. You know that joy, that creative joy of being able to express whatever you want and not have to defend it so much, other than to audiences and the other collaborators. I think that was just a really special, fun experience, and I try to remember that and bring it to every film that I get the privilege of directing." Mr. Robot — 2015 Steeped in a different genre, but still connected to the theme of identity, Ganatra put her stamp on the series Mr. Robot, starring Rami Malek, directing an episode in Season 1. Ganatra actually knew Sam Esmail from NYU, and was a fan of his writing, particularly the "paranoia" he injects into his work. "I sort of move through the world with a really big open heart of like, everyone's here with the best intentions, and Sam's like, 'You're a f—king idiot. Everyone's out here to get us,'" Ganatra said. "And so I just thought something cool and interesting would happen if the two of us put those points of view together." "I think he let me break the rules too, because his show was like, no handheld, ... and this is our close-up lens, and this is our distance, and we don't move the camera unless it's motivated. And if you do move it, there's never a tilt or zoom. ... And I was like, OK he's going to go into this drug house, and I think it should be handheld, and here's why." Advertisement Then Esmail told her that he wanted the scene to be like True Detective. Ganatra hadn't watched the show, but she saw the opening frame and was really turned off by the extensive focus on a dead woman. But Esmail was actually wanting to make that moment a oner, a scene filmed with no cuts. "So in that scene Rami goes into this house, does a drug deal, shoots up and is killed, all in a oner," Ganatra shared. "And it's insane that we pulled that off." Girls — 2017 Ganatra directed the second last episode of Girls, which was actually supposed to be the finale, with that decision up in the air for a period of time due to Lena Dunham's health. But then executive producer and writer Judd Apatow came in to direct one more episode, which ended up being the series finale. Ganatra's episode, titled "Goodbye Tour," is particularly special in the Girls fandom, because it includes an incredibly impactful montage of Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna. Advertisement "They let me break all the rules of that show and create this insane montage where it kind of leapt through time and space to bring the show to a big series finale feeling," Ganatra explained. "Lena and Jenni [Konner] are incredibly supportive of directors, and it is a dream to direct for any producer, or writer, showrunner that is like that. That understands that, yes, it's the writer's medium, but the directors can bring so much if you let them." "We can all stand there and just sort of cover a scene, but if you really ... encourage them to bring their vision, I think you're going to be so much more surprised. ... It makes you raise your game too. You're not going to just phone-in some TV directing. You're going to be like, OK what's the best I can do?" Late Night — 2019 Then in 2019 Ganatra directed the incomparable Emma Thompson in the film Late Night, written by Mindy Kaling, who also stars in the film. For Ganatra, the important message of the film is dismantling this idea that there can only be a seat for one woman at the table, whether it's a late night talk show, like in the film, or any other industry or career. Advertisement "Mindy, again, also was like, 'Here, do your vision.' She had written this beautiful script, but one thing that Emma and I brought to it, that I love too, was that ... we wanted her character to be someone who had bought into the whole idea that there's only a place at the table for one, and so she was the woman that was holding out other women and keeping them down," Ganatra said. "And she had to come to the realization that she was never going to be treated as an equal in this field of uneven misogyny." "And so for her to come to the realization that this character of Mindy's, she initially saw as a threat, was actually going to be her biggest ally, and how the two of them could support each other to rise in this business, it was such an important personal story. ... I've always kind of wanted to be Mike Nichols in a way, and Elaine May together. And so it was very much a fantasy New York film of smart women saying smart things, and smart looking guys saying smart things, and everybody working together to ultimately help the underdog achieve. I miss those movies where women are just ambitious and smart, like Broadcast News and Working Girl, just watching those movies were really big inspirations for that one." Ganatra also highlighted how fantastic it was to work with Thompson on the film. "She is one of the greatest actors of [our time]," Ganatra said. "She's also very much like Jamie [Lee Curtis], they're director's actors, so she will put her whole performance in your hands and really trust you." Advertisement "And I think when someone like Emma Thompson does that, you really learn who you are as a director really quickly. ... She can take any idea you have and make it 20 times better in its execution." Deli Boys — 2025 After working with Jenni Konner on Girls, they reunited for the brilliant series Deli Boys, starring Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh as Pakistani-American brothers who discover their father's criminal enterprise after his sudden death. "[When I saw Jenni] was doing Deli Boys and Abdullah [Saeed] had written this bananas script that I love, I was begging to be a part of that," Ganatra said. "I wanted to live out my Coen Brothers dreams and just make a really cool, stylistic action-comedy." "Blending genres has always been interesting to me. Whether it's comedy with big emotion, or a queer film with a family film, or with Deli Boys it was the extreme violence with comedy. ... I really explained the vision for how I would shoot the pilot to Jenni Konner and the team, and Onyx [Collective], and I'm just thankful they let me do it." Advertisement Ganatra directed the show's first episode, really setting the tone for what we would see for the rest of the season. She set up a style guide for the show, the lenses she would use and how coverage would be executed, but she was particularly intentional with how violence was shown. "It was tricky because it was Muslim and brown men, and ... I never want to see women murdered on screen, ever, and I never want to see brown men killed. I think we're at a pretty big crisis point for brown people in our country, and I didn't want to contribute to images of violence for those groups," Ganatra said. "There's a scene at the very end of the pilot and I thought, the better thing to do is to just show Asif and Saagar covered in blood, ... the violence happens off screen, and then we come back to it. And it kind of set the tone for how violence was treated in the series." "But that moment was so fun because ... I was like, OK you guys are going to be covered in blood, and it's going to be like the christening of you guys into this lifestyle. But we also have to make sure it's funny. And so Asif does his, 'What just happened,' but then he added this scream, and the scream that he does, if it didn't happen at that perfect pitch, ... it would not be funny. And I think that was so incredible to work with a comedic talent like him, who knows how to use his instrument so well. ... And the [assistant director] reminded me recently, he said, you told them it was going on the count of three, and then you did a one, two, and you had the guy fire on two so that we really got their surprise reaction." Freakier Friday — 2025 For Freakier Friday, while it's a big studio comedy, Ganatra said that it feels like an indie film for her, because everyone involved — from Disney to the producers and herself — feels like it's a movie that they all made together. In the film Lindsay Lohan's character Anna is a single mother to her teenager daughter Harper (Julia Butters), while Anna's mom Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) is happy to step in and help Anna with parenting duties. Anna meets Eric (Manny Jacinto), a widowed father to his daughter Lily (Sophia Hammons), who moved from England to California. Anna and Eric fall in love, set to get married, but Lily and Harper can't stand each other, highlighting the difficulties of blending families. And that's when we get our body switching moment. Anna and Harper switch bodies, while Lily and Tess swap as well. "Jamie and Lindsay together in a two-shot is every director's dream," Ganatra said. "I think the fun is that Jamie is so wild and open and carefree and daring, and Lindsay is a little more cautious and guarded. And then she blows open and gets in it with Jamie, and the two of them pull each other towards each other." As an instant homage to the 2003 movie, Freakier Friday was filmed in the same aspect ratio as films from that time, and coloured and grained in a way to feel like that time period. While not a 2000s movie, Ganatra took particular inspiration from the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off for Freakier Friday. "The fun of that movie being a part of this was that the characters that are not the stars are allowed to shine," Ganatra explained. "And I think it's been a while since movies have allowed for that." "Everybody's so focused on the movie star, ... but Gen Z doesn't really ... care about who the movie star is. They're more about like, what is the story? Is this funny? Should I pay attention? ... And so I feel like the freedom of that being acknowledged, so that we could have every comedy heavy hitter come in and make the most of every part, there isn't one wasted moment. You're not treading water through a scene to get to the next thing with Lindsay and Jamie. Every scene has somebody that shines in it, and I think that's what's so fun about this one." One element adapted from Freaky Friday is that the new film isn't perpetuating a harmful Asian stereotype, like Freaky Friday did back in 2003 with Chinese restaurant owner Pei-Pei (Rosalind Chao), and her mother, played by Lucille Soong. "The original movie, I was a fan of. It was a sort of movie of its time, but we needed to acknowledge that we're in current time, ... a lot has changed, thankfully, and that we can be a lot more current," Ganatra said. "The joy for that was to honour those characters and show how they all became a family after that experience, and that they are Harper's godmother, and they're kind of involved in everyone's life, but obviously they have more important things to do than keep switching bodies between people." Having Manny Jacinto and Sophia Hammons in the film also strengthens the emotional elements of this film around navigating a multicultural blended family. "A multicultural blended family is really, I think it's just more of my own personal experience and what I know, and how it takes effort and love to keep a family together," Ganatra said. "Your chosen family isn't just going to be there for you all the time if you're not making a lot of effort and [putting] energy into keeping everybody together, and practising that. And I think that's a really beautiful message in the movie, is that we have to honour and prioritize each other for this to work." "I think that those are my favourite comedies, the ones that take you on an emotional journey. I loved Bridesmaids so much, but the thing I loved about it was the story about Kristen Wiig being afraid of losing her best friend, Maya Rudolph, and that is what made it so funny and so hilarious, but that emotional core is what made me really invested. ... So with [Freakier Friday] it really had to be that story about these two parents who ... are put in charge of raising a whole daughter by themselves, and how did they do that and also find their lives in a fulfilling way. I think that's a really big question for so many of us. How do you pursue all the things, stay responsible to the things that matter to you, and also find place for your love and heart and daily life to expand?"
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Freakier Friday' director Nisha Ganatra was sneaking into film classes, now she's directing Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis
Eh Listers: Nisha Ganatra Director, writer and producer Nisha Ganatra has taken on the sequel of the 2003 Freaky Friday story with the release of Freakier Friday (now in theatres). But the legacy of the story was put in the best possible hands with Ganatra, who grew up in in Vancouver, an expert in blending genres across film and TV, executing very specific and thoughtful visions for projects from Girls to Deli Boys, Dear White People, And Just Like That..., and the movie Late Night. A through-line for several of Ganatra's projects is the theme of identity. The brilliant filmmaker is able to explore that theme through a variety of genres. But Ganatra's career path wasn't linear. While she was in university, with the intention of becoming a lawyer, she started sneaking into film classes. Advertisement "I had immigrant parents who are pretty, just traditional, so I didn't really assume there was any other path," Ganatra told Yahoo Canada. "And then my roommate in college, I was so lucky, she's the one who was like, 'Hey, you seem to be really into this other stuff. You might want to take a look at it.'" "I was like, there's no career there though. And so she's the one that helped me go to the intern board and get some career advice. ... But it's still such a dream. I really can't believe I get to do this every day. It's still pretty incredible." Ganatra made the transition to the famed New York University (NYU) film school, where one of her instructors was Spike Lee. "Spike Lee was always like, 'Make a feature.' ... He encouraged me to make my first feature while I was in school, because he said, you go out there and if it's terrible, then it was your student film, you have another chance," Ganatra said. "If it's good, then you say that's my first feature, and you start your career and get going." Advertisement "I think the advice from NYU was just hustle, hustle, hustle, and make sure the story you're telling is worth telling, because you don't want to waste people's time, both making the film and watching the film." Ganatra stressed that another core lesson she learned is to ask of every project: "Why am I telling this story?" "I think that's why, it's such a strange thing to say, but Freakier Friday feels like a very personal movie, even though it's a big, giant studio comedy, it still feels like I get to say a lot about being a single mom and parenting and intergenerational love between women, and it's very exciting to have that. And I think that came from my NYU days," she said. Yahoo Canada's Eh Listers is an interview series with women and non-binary Canadians in film and television, looking back on their careers with unfiltered stories about their greatest projects. Chutney Popcorn Chutney Popcorn — 1999 Ganatra's first feature, Chutney Popcorn, was screened to an enthusiastic crowd at the 2000 Berlin film festival, receiving a standing ovation. The incredibly entertaining, endearing and witty movie is a must-watch. Advertisement Ganatra herself plays the character Reena, in addition to directing and writing the film while she was a student at NYU. "It might have just been not knowing any different, but there weren't that many Indian-American actresses at the time, and the one I had written it for, her parents wouldn't let her play a lesbian, so it was this mad dash to try to find somebody to play that part," Ganatra shared. Reena lives in New York with her girlfriend Lisa (Jill Hennessy), but when Reena's sister Sarita (Sakina Jaffrey) finds out she can't conceive a child, Reena volunteers to be a surrogate for her sister. "I think that movie was made with the love and sweat of all my classmates, and the community that came together to help us," Ganatra said. "The lesbian community in New York really turned out, lent us a motorcycle, somebody came and knew how to do lighting. It was all just like, 'Hey, do you know kind of how to do this? Cool, you're on the crew now.' ... So I think that experience of making something so community and so collaborative was informing for the rest of my life." Advertisement "I remember when we were cutting that movie and we had been given an editing room that we could use off hours, so we would edit from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. And my editor, somebody came in to visit, to watch a cut and give us advice, and they were like, 'You two will never have it this good again.' ... And now I get it. What they were talking about was total creative control. You know that joy, that creative joy of being able to express whatever you want and not have to defend it so much, other than to audiences and the other collaborators. I think that was just a really special, fun experience, and I try to remember that and bring it to every film that I get the privilege of directing." Mr. Robot — 2015 Steeped in a different genre, but still connected to the theme of identity, Ganatra put her stamp on the series Mr. Robot, starring Rami Malek, directing an episode in Season 1. Ganatra actually knew Sam Esmail from NYU, and was a fan of his writing, particularly the "paranoia" he injects into his work. "I sort of move through the world with a really big open heart of like, everyone's here with the best intentions, and Sam's like, 'You're a f—king idiot. Everyone's out here to get us,'" Ganatra said. "And so I just thought something cool and interesting would happen if the two of us put those points of view together." "I think he let me break the rules too, because his show was like, no handheld, ... and this is our close-up lens, and this is our distance, and we don't move the camera unless it's motivated. And if you do move it, there's never a tilt or zoom. ... And I was like, OK he's going to go into this drug house, and I think it should be handheld, and here's why." Advertisement Then Esmail told her that he wanted the scene to be like True Detective. Ganatra hadn't watched the show, but she saw the opening frame and was really turned off by the extensive focus on a dead woman. But Esmail was actually wanting to make that moment a oner, a scene filmed with no cuts. "So in that scene Rami goes into this house, does a drug deal, shoots up and is killed, all in a oner," Ganatra shared. "And it's insane that we pulled that off." Girls — 2017 Ganatra directed the second last episode of Girls, which was actually supposed to be the finale, with that decision up in the air for a period of time due to Lena Dunham's health. But then executive producer and writer Judd Apatow came in to direct one more episode, which ended up being the series finale. Ganatra's episode, titled "Goodbye Tour," is particularly special in the Girls fandom, because it includes an incredibly impactful montage of Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna. Advertisement "They let me break all the rules of that show and create this insane montage where it kind of leapt through time and space to bring the show to a big series finale feeling," Ganatra explained. "Lena and Jenni [Konner] are incredibly supportive of directors, and it is a dream to direct for any producer, or writer, showrunner that is like that. That understands that, yes, it's the writer's medium, but the directors can bring so much if you let them." "We can all stand there and just sort of cover a scene, but if you really ... encourage them to bring their vision, I think you're going to be so much more surprised. ... It makes you raise your game too. You're not going to just phone-in some TV directing. You're going to be like, OK what's the best I can do?" Late Night — 2019 Then in 2019 Ganatra directed the incomparable Emma Thompson in the film Late Night, written by Mindy Kaling, who also stars in the film. For Ganatra, the important message of the film is dismantling this idea that there can only be a seat for one woman at the table, whether it's a late night talk show, like in the film, or any other industry or career. Advertisement "Mindy, again, also was like, 'Here, do your vision.' She had written this beautiful script, but one thing that Emma and I brought to it, that I love too, was that ... we wanted her character to be someone who had bought into the whole idea that there's only a place at the table for one, and so she was the woman that was holding out other women and keeping them down," Ganatra said. "And she had to come to the realization that she was never going to be treated as an equal in this field of uneven misogyny." "And so for her to come to the realization that this character of Mindy's, she initially saw as a threat, was actually going to be her biggest ally, and how the two of them could support each other to rise in this business, it was such an important personal story. ... I've always kind of wanted to be Mike Nichols in a way, and Elaine May together. And so it was very much a fantasy New York film of smart women saying smart things, and smart looking guys saying smart things, and everybody working together to ultimately help the underdog achieve. I miss those movies where women are just ambitious and smart, like Broadcast News and Working Girl, just watching those movies were really big inspirations for that one." Ganatra also highlighted how fantastic it was to work with Thompson on the film. "She is one of the greatest actors of [our time]," Ganatra said. "She's also very much like Jamie [Lee Curtis], they're director's actors, so she will put her whole performance in your hands and really trust you." Advertisement "And I think when someone like Emma Thompson does that, you really learn who you are as a director really quickly. ... She can take any idea you have and make it 20 times better in its execution." Deli Boys — 2025 After working with Jenni Konner on Girls, they reunited for the brilliant series Deli Boys, starring Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh as Pakistani-American brothers who discover their father's criminal enterprise after his sudden death. "[When I saw Jenni] was doing Deli Boys and Abdullah [Saeed] had written this bananas script that I love, I was begging to be a part of that," Ganatra said. "I wanted to live out my Coen Brothers dreams and just make a really cool, stylistic action-comedy." "Blending genres has always been interesting to me. Whether it's comedy with big emotion, or a queer film with a family film, or with Deli Boys it was the extreme violence with comedy. ... I really explained the vision for how I would shoot the pilot to Jenni Konner and the team, and Onyx [Collective], and I'm just thankful they let me do it." Advertisement Ganatra directed the show's first episode, really setting the tone for what we would see for the rest of the season. She set up a style guide for the show, the lenses she would use and how coverage would be executed, but she was particularly intentional with how violence was shown. "It was tricky because it was Muslim and brown men, and ... I never want to see women murdered on screen, ever, and I never want to see brown men killed. I think we're at a pretty big crisis point for brown people in our country, and I didn't want to contribute to images of violence for those groups," Ganatra said. "There's a scene at the very end of the pilot and I thought, the better thing to do is to just show Asif and Saagar covered in blood, ... the violence happens off screen, and then we come back to it. And it kind of set the tone for how violence was treated in the series." "But that moment was so fun because ... I was like, OK you guys are going to be covered in blood, and it's going to be like the christening of you guys into this lifestyle. But we also have to make sure it's funny. And so Asif does his, 'What just happened,' but then he added this scream, and the scream that he does, if it didn't happen at that perfect pitch, ... it would not be funny. And I think that was so incredible to work with a comedic talent like him, who knows how to use his instrument so well. ... And the [assistant director] reminded me recently, he said, you told them it was going on the count of three, and then you did a one two, and you had the guy fired at on two so that we really got their surprise reaction." Freakier Friday — 2025 For Freakier Friday, while it's a big studio comedy, Ganatra said that it feels like an indie film for her, because everyone involved — from Disney to the producers and herself — feels like it's a movie that they all made together. In the film Lindsay Lohan's character Anna is a single mother to her teenager daughter Harper (Julia Butters), while Anna's mom Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) is happy to step in and help Anna with parenting duties. Anna meets Eric (Manny Jacinto), a widowed father to his daughter Lily (Sophia Hammons), who moved from England to California. Anna and Eric fall in love, set to get married, but Lily and Harper can't stand each other, highlighting the difficulties of blending families. And that's when we get our body switching moment. Anna and Harper switch bodies, while Lily and Tess swap as well. "Jamie and Lindsay together in a two-shot is every director's dream," Ganatra said. "I think the fun is that Jamie is so wild and open and carefree and daring, and Lindsay is a little more cautious and guarded. And then she blows open and gets in it with Jamie, and the two of them pull each other towards each other." As an instant homage to the 2003 movie, Freakier Friday was filmed in the same aspect ratio as films from that time, and coloured and grained in a way to feel like that time period. While not a 2000s movie, Ganatra took particular inspiration from the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off for Freakier Friday. "The fun of that movie being a part of this was that the characters that are not the stars are allowed to shine," Ganatra explained. "And I think it's been a while since movies have allowed for that." "Everybody's so focused on the movie star, ... but Gen Z doesn't really ... care about who the movie star is. They're more about like, what is the story? Is this funny? Should I pay attention? ... And so I feel like the freedom of that being acknowledged, so that we could have every comedy heavy hitter come in and make the most of every part. There isn't one wasted moment. You're not treading water through a scene to get to the next thing with Lindsay and Jamie. Every scene has somebody that shines in it, and I think that's what's so fun about this one." One element adapted from Freaky Friday is that the new film isn't perpetuating a harmful Asian stereotype, like Freaky Friday did back in 2003 with Chinese restaurant owner Pei-Pei (Rosalind Chao), and her mother, played by Lucille Soong. "The original movie, I was a fan of. It was a sort of movie of its time, but we needed to acknowledge that we're in current time, ... a lot has changed, thankfully, and that we can be a lot more current," Ganatra said. "The joy for that was to honour those characters and show how they all became a family after that experience, and that they are Harper's godmother, and they're kind of involved in everyone's life, but obviously they have more important things to do than keep switching bodies between people." Having Manny Jacinto and Sophia Hammons in the film also strengthens the emotional elements of this film around navigating a multicultural blended family. "A multicultural blended family is really, I think it's just more of my own personal experience and what I know, and how it takes effort and love to keep a family together," Ganatra said. "Your chosen family isn't just going to be there for you all the time if you're not making a lot of effort and [putting] energy into keeping everybody together, and practising that. And I think that's a really beautiful message in the movie, is that we have to honour and prioritize each other for this to work." "I think that those are my favourite comedies, the ones that take you on an emotional journey. I loved Bridesmaids so much, but the thing I loved about it was the story about Kristen Wiig being afraid of losing her best friend, Maya Rudolph, and that is what made it so funny and so hilarious, but that emotional core is what made me really invested. ... So with [Freakier Friday] it really had to be that story about these two parents who ... are put in charge of raising a whole daughter by themselves, and how did they do that and also find their lives in a fulfilling way. I think that's a really big question for so many of us. How do you pursue all the things, stay responsible to the things that matter to you, and also find place for your love and heart and daily life to expand?"
Forbes
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Freakier Friday' Rotten Tomatoes Reviews: Does Lightning Strike Twice?
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan's Freakier Friday — a sequel to their 2003 hit body switch comedy Freaky Friday — is new in theaters. Do Rotten Tomatoes critics think the sequel is as good as the original? Opening in theaters nationwide on Friday, the summary for Freakier Friday reads, 'The film picks up years after Tess (Curtis) and Anna Coleman (Lohan) endured an identity crisis. Anna now has a daughter of her own and a soon-to-be stepdaughter. 'As they navigate the myriad challenges that come when two families merge, Tess and Anna discover that lightning might indeed strike twice.' Directed by Nisha Ganatra, Freakier Friday also stars Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray, Christina Vidal Mitchell, Haley Hudson, Lucille Soong, Stephen Tobolowsky, Rosalind Chao, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan.' As of Thursday, Freakier Friday has earned a 73% 'fresh' rating based on Rotten Tomatoes based on 127 reviews. The RT Critics Consensus for the film reads, 'Freakier Friday doesn't reinvent the original's story so much as it swaps the formula around for a frothy good time, with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan easily slipping back into roles that fit them like mixed-and-matched gloves.' The RT Popcornmeter score based on verified user ratings is still pending. What Are Individual Critics Saying About 'Freakier Friday'? Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times is among the top critics on RT who gives Freakier Friday a 'fresh' rating, writing in her review summary, 'Freakier Friday works best if you're there for the memories. Especially if you've learned a lesson or two of your own in the last 22 years.' William Bibbiani of The Wrap is also a fan of Freakier Friday, writing in his 'fresh' review summary on RT, 'It's still sweet, it's still funny, it's still freaky, and it's still Friday. Thank God.' Jocelyn Noveck of The Associated Press also gives Freakier Friday a 'fresh' review on RT, albeit with some reservations, writing, 'The problem is that sometimes, it's actually hard to keep track of who's inhabiting whom, and therefore why they're doing what. Not to say that Freakier Friday, directed with gusto by Nisha Ganatra, doesn't have moments of comic glee. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter is among the top critics on RT who gives Freakier Friday a 'rotten' review, writing, 'I think I would have preferred a shot-for-shot remake to this painfully stretched cash-grab.' Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune isn't a fan of Freakier Friday either, writing in his 'rotten' review summary on RT, 'There is a strain to it all. Doubling the bodies swapped ends up feeling like six times the chaos, not two.' Also unimpressed by Freakier Friday is Clarisse Loughrey of the UK's Independent, who writes in her 'rotten' review on RT, 'The talent of tomorrow has to play second fiddle to a generation's inability to let go of the past. And that's something a quick body swap can't solve.' Rated PG, Freakier Friday is new in theaters nationwide on Friday.
ABC News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Freakier Friday review: A fine, fun addition to Disney's catalogue of reboots
Going into a film like Freakier Friday, it's essential to adjust one's expectations. Fast facts Freakier Friday: What: 22 years after their first life swap, mum and daughter Tess and Anna once again wake up in a new body — but this time, a new generation is caught up in the mayhem too. Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chad Michael Murray, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan. Director: Nisha Ganatra Where: In cinemas now. Likely to make you feel: Like calling your mum. Any sequel — let alone a reboot made 22 years after its original — is never going to hit the same as its beloved predecessor. The new film tries to please dual audiences; fans with fond memories of the noughties hit, many of whom are now parents themselves, and modern kids and teens who have their contemporary taste in film. The result is a bubbly, quippy, Disney-channel style blend of bright colours, battle-of-the-generations comedy and a Chappell Roan soundtrack. Of course, Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis were not the first to take on the body-swap classic. Based on the 1972 novel of the same name, the first film adaptation came in 1976, starring Barbara Harris and a young Jodie Foster. The role pushed the teenager towards stardom, earned three Golden Globe nominations and was both a critical and box office success. Almost three decades later, the 2003 remake was also a smash hit, poking fun at the explosive relationship between Tess (Curtis) and her teenage daughter Anna (Lohan). After some problematic "Asian voodoo" (classic early 2000s) one night at a Chinese restaurant, the pair magically wakes up in each other's bodies and must make things right before Tess's wedding. In the modern sequel, Lohan's Anna is a single mum and music manager who quickly falls head over heels for handsome single dad Eric (Manny Jacinto). The couple are determined to marry and move their blended family to the UK, much to the dismay of Anna's surf-obsessed teenager Harper (Julia Butters), who is determined to stay in California for the killer swells. While Eric's daughter Lily (Sophia Hammons), whose only personality trait seems to be "British", yearns to return to England. Curtis returns too, taking on the role of overbearing grandma, constantly "helping" her daughter with endless parenting advice and unwelcome assistance to comically relatable effect. Sure enough, the warring women are soon tested once again by a four-way body swap; Anna and Tess wake up in Harper and Lily's bodies, and vice versa. Endless gen Z vs "old people" gags ensue, as do all the classic scenes of the original; mum and grandma end up in detention, the teens give their older bodies a makeover, and so on. Tess's career as a psychologist gets a new spin, with our contemporary obsession with therapy-talk turned into a running joke. And, of course, there's endless nostalgia bait. Chad Michael Murray is back as the endlessly cool Jake, in his first major acting role in what feels like decades. Anna's band, Pink Slip, performs their classic Take Me Away from the original, which (fun fact!) is originally by the Australian band Lash. Anna's little brother, Harry (Ryan Malgarini), now all grown up, even makes a brief appearance, in a sure-fire way to make you feel very old. Mark Harmon of NCIS fame reappears as Tess's now long-term husband, while Stephen Tobolowsky's Mr Bates remains cranky as ever. Freakier Friday is by no means a great film — but no-one expected it to be. The jokes don't always land, the acting is a little overdone, and much of the film feels like a straight-to-TV movie in peak Hollywood, Disney-fied style. But it's also a ton of fun, and retains the intention of its original; it's a mostly silly film about mums and daughters, for mums and daughters. Its main message centres around the intensity of this love, while also driving home the point that all young people want is control over their own lives. Curtis is the clear stand-out of the film, bringing her trademark confidence and unabashed humour to the forefront. Gen Zs and Alphas will enjoy the modern style, which mimics TV hits of their Zeitgeist like Wednesday, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Never Have I Ever and Victorious. And the mums and big sisters who've dragged them along will laugh at all the call-backs to the film that defined many a childhood. Freakier Friday is in cinemas now.
