★★ (2 out of 4)
This sequel to 2003’s “Freaky Friday” isn’t much of a movie—it’s not even “freakier” as the title promises—just messier, clumsier and shriekier. It will also be a double-barreled hit. How’s that? Two words: fan service—a term critics use about engineered entertainments that give audiences exactly what they want, meaning exactly what they gave them before. “Freakier Friday” does just that only with double the toothless PG pandering and unquiet desperation.
Welcome to Hollywood 2025, where sequels, prequels, remakes and reboots are the rule and an original idea is doomed to die of loneliness. This is no knock on Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, the star attractions who work twice as hard to serve the fans. They’ve even doubled up on the body swapping. Now four people are trading places.
My thinking is that audiences will blind themselves to the emptiness at the core of ‘Freakier Friday.’ That’s the downside of fan service. By delivering nonstop cameos and callbacks to the thing we once loved, we’ll mistake the artificial for the genuine article, a pervasive plague in today’s world.
Way back when, Curtis played Tess, a therapist with all the answers, except what to do when her teen daughter Anna (Lohan), a wannabe rock star, literally wakes up in her body and vice versa. Sure, they scream. Wouldn’t you? Finding yourself actually becoming your parent or child is a Freudian nightmare made flesh. Curtis and Lohan nailed every laugh and stray tear.
Jump ahead a generation: Now Tess is a self-professed “cool” grandma and Anna has a moody teen daughter of her own named Harper (Julia Butters) and a demanding stepdaughter-in- waiting, Lily (Sophia Hammons), who’s none too pleased at the prospect of Anna marrying her father Eric (Manny Jacinto), a British widower who can’t understand why the girls hate each other. Has this dude never seen Lohan in “Mean Girls,” a much better movie and a primer on the subject?
Another Lohan hit, “The Parent Trap,” is inspiration for a plot in which the girls scheme to break up the wedding and go back to living separate lives. It’s not awful as conflicts go, but screenwriter Jordan Weiss overcomplicates things right out the gate as Harper body swaps with Anna and Lily with Tess.
Confession: as the movie wore on, with overcaffeinated direction from Nisha Ganatra who mistakes being chaotic for a style choice, I could not keep track of who was who. Even worse, I stopped caring. Why would Lily turn Tess into a violent terror at pickleball and a menace on the road? I ‘m guessing to pump some action into a talky script.
And why oh why are the younger characters presented with zero distinctive traits? Butters impressed me mightily giving Leonardo DiCaprio an acting pep talk in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” But here the script gives her nothing to play and she responds in kind by giving nothing back.
There are only two reasons to justify the existence of “Freakier Friday” and you can guess their names. It’s a kick to see Lohan take charge of a role again with newfound comic assurance. Curtis, encouraged by the filmmakers to push-push-push like acting is another form of giving birth, counters when allowed with her intuitive grit and grace.
Is it enough? My thinking is that audiences will blind themselves to the emptiness at the core of “Freakier Friday.” That’s the downside of fan service. By delivering nonstop cameos and callbacks to the thing we once loved we’ll mistake the artificial for the genuine article, a pervasive plague in today’s world. And if there’s another sequel, less won’t be more, more will be more. Instead of four body swaps, we’ll have an army of them. The mind boggles.