As I get closer to my thirties, I find myself more nostalgic for the movies of my childhood. In the past year, I’ve rewatched classics like The Princess Diaries and The Lizzie McGuire Movie with my friends and felt such delight at quoting certain lines and singing along to the soundtrack. I’m definitely the target audience for Freakier Friday.
The 2003’s Freaky Friday — one of many movies Disney adapted from the 1972 novel of the same name — was a childhood staple. When I think of the movies I would most often find on TV, ripe for endless rewatching, I think of Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis screaming in each other’s faces.
The first movie is iconic, so I was naturally a bit nervous about the decision to make a sequel more than two decades later. And yet, from the very beginning of the Nisha Ganatra-directed movie, I felt nothing but sheer delight at seeing Lohan and Curtis reunited on screen, doing the thing they do best: give their all to a hilarious body-swap premise.
Freakier Friday Feels Familiar & New All At Once — Just As It Should
The familiar beats of the previous story are all here, but Ganatra and screenwriter Jordan Weiss (building off a story by Weiss and Elyse Hollander) supply enough twists to keep it from being a boring retread. One-time rebellious punk rocker Anna (Lohan) has now matured into a mom prone to therapy-speak, while Tess (Curtis) is channeling her own motherly instincts into her granddaughter, Harper (Julia ʙuттers).
Even if Anna and Tess’ most intense conflicts have long since settled, there is still discord among the women in the Coleman family. After being a single mother for all of Harper’s life, Anna falls head-over-heels for Eric (a very dreamy Manny Jacinto), a chef with a pampered daughter, Lily (Sophia Hammons), who doesn’t get along with Harper. At all.
With Anna and Eric’s wedding looming — along with the possibility of the whole family moving to London, where Eric and Lily are from — tensions are running high between all four ladies. Enter a seriously over-achieving psychic (Vanessa Bayer) who foresees that all they need is a change of heart — and perhaps a change of body, too.
The filmmakers smartly chose to avoid some of the questionable tropes from the first movie that arose with the Chinese mother and daughter being involved in Anna and Tess’ switch (though both Rosalind Chao and Lucille Soong make brief returns here). However, as funny as Bayer is, it does make Freakier Friday a bit cornier than before.
Regardless of the lack of subtlety, the body swap must happen. The next morning, Harper and Anna discover they’ve swapped places and, even more hilariously, Lily and Tess have as well. Curtis gets some excellent laughs right out of the gate as she, as the teenage Lily, gamely reacts with horror at her older physique.
Harper and Lily see an opportunity to break up the impending wedding, while Anna and Tess just want to put an end to all the swapping. Freakier Friday branches out in two different directions as the story follows both pairs on their inevitable, predictable (but no less heartwarming) journeys of friendship and understanding.
Jamie Lee Curtis & Lindsay Lohan Are Incredible Together
The Sequel Makes Great Use Of Their Talents
Unsurprisingly, the more entertaining thread is the one that features Lohan and Curtis. Not only do their characters have a richer conflict to explore as Harper and Lily team up, but both actors get an excellent showcase for their comedic talents. They worked together brilliantly as dueling mother and daughter; now, they get a completely new dynamic to portray, and it’s thrilling to see.
Perhaps one of the best sequences for them comes when the two teens seek out Anna’s high school crush, Jake (Chad Michael Murray), in the hopes of introducing a romantic complication. Lohan demonstrates her prowess for physical comedy while Curtis, shortly after a flirting attempt goes wildly sideways, gets to be vulnerable. Both actors are in perfect form.
Freakier Friday stands on its own, but it also features a number of callbacks to the 2003 original that will undoubtedly delight viewers who grew up with it.
That’s the greatest strength of Freakier Friday: it balances the hilarity with the heartfelt, giving practically every character the chance to get real and deepen their connections. As I really sat with the movie as the credits rolled, I wondered if one character’s growth got a bit shortchanged by the end, but with such a triumphant, nostalgic climax, it’s easy to breeze over.
Though Lohan and Curtis are the stars of the show, their younger counterparts are more than capable. ʙuттers has already proven herself a notable rising talent, but her open devastation when something goes horribly wrong is especially striking here. Hammons is equally great, going from posh teen to sweetly overbearing grandmother with ease.
Freakier Friday stands on its own, but it also features a number of callbacks to the 2003 movie that will undoubtedly delight viewers who grew up with it. Familiar faces pop up here and there, with some making brief cameos and others, like Mark Harmon’s Ryan, getting a meaningful moment or two. The jokes fly and mostly land, though that’s largely thanks to the skill of the cast.
Ganatra, taking over from original director Mark Waters, sets an energetic pace and keeps things lively during the comedic scenes, though she also knows when to take a beat and let the character work speak for itself. Freakier Friday has all the hallmarks of an early 2000s teen comedy, albeit with a 2025 sheen.
As a result, it’s a legacy sequel done right. Freakier Friday honors the original movie that paved the way — the Pink Slip reunion is as joyful as one would hope — while telling a new story that gives fresh layers to the characters we know and love. As Lohan’s long-awaited return to the big screen and reunion with Curtis, it’s a crowd-pleasing delight.
