Freakier Friday (2025) – On And On And On

Released: 7th August
Seen: 20th September

In the year 2003, Disney did something absolutely unheard of by the company… They released a remake of one of their previous films. The film being remade was 1976’s Freaky Friday, which was a fairly decent success with several Golden Globe nominations and featured a young Jodie Foster (who would also be in Taxi Driver that same year, 1976 was a wild year to be Jodie Foster) so remaking it probably seemed like a foolish idea, but it went ahead. The film would star Lindsay Lohan in one of the roles that would go on to define her career and Jamie Lee Curtis in probably one of her most beloved performances outside of a slasher film. Together, they made a little piece of millennial magic. Anyone who was a teenager in 2003 knew this film and loved it on some level. Hell, just play a few notes of Take Me Away and anyone of that specific generation will have flashbacks to Jamie Lee Curtis shredding the guitar solo like she’d been a rockstar for her entire life. It was an undeniable sensation, it was the 20th highest-grossing film of 2003 and is a real fan favourite live action Disney film. It’s actually shocking that it took 22 years for them to make a sequel to it, but now they have… It’s fine.

Freakier Friday picks up 20 years after the original, and a few minor things have changed. Anna (Lindsay Lohan) is a single mother with her own daughter, Harper (Julia Butters), who she is raising with a little help from Grandma Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis). Harper is somewhat of a problem child, and one of her big problems is that she doesn’t get along with another student at her school, a British girl named Lily (Sophia Hammons). At school, Harper and Lily get into a fight that’s bad enough to require their parents being brought in, meaning Anna gets a chance to meet Eric (Manny Jacinto) and the two promptly fall in love, have a whirlwind romance and eventually get engaged. This doesn’t sit well with either Harper or Lily who don’t want to be sisters and live together forever so naturally this leads to all four women somehow having a meeting with Madam Jen (Vanessa Bayer) who reads their fortunes and does some weird magic that ends up causing everyone to switch bodies, putting Anna and Tess in the bodies of Harper and Lily until they all can figure out something special and get along together.

So, did you see Freaky Friday? Did you enjoy Freaky Friday? Great, then you pretty much know everything that’s going to happen in Freakier Friday and are probably going to like it just as much because it is more or less the exact same movie with minimal adjustments. Sure, there’s the new dynamic of Harper and Lily to contend with, but really, it’s the same thing: two kids behaving like adults while two adults behave like teenagers. Lindsay Lohan gets to be the voice of reason, Jamie Lee does her absolutely bonkers take on a teenager that was so iconic the first time around and newcomers Sophia and Julia manage to hold their own as, effectively, the straight people in this comedic act. The storyline is almost beat by beat the same, right down to a grand finale at a rock concert where Pink Slip play the ever iconic Take Me Away. If you liked the original, it’s the same movie with mildly different age jokes for Jamie Lee Curtis to sell because now she’s playing someone in their 60s instead of someone in their 40s. 

That feeling of everything being the same really just goes throughout Freakier Friday, all the same beats, same conflicts, there’s a moment where Tess is given an extreme makeover to make her cool and sexy looking, awkward moments with Anna’s old boyfriend Jake (Chad Michael Murray) that really just feel like they were done the first time. What’s impressive is that even though the jokes feel the same, they still work quite well in large part because the bulk of the comedic weight is placed on Jamie and Lindsay’s shoulders, and the two of them have the kind of cinematic comedic chemistry that just can’t be beat. They could’ve recited a joke verbatim from the original and it would still get a laugh, they are that good at this. 

Of course, the problem with everything being so similar to the original is that when something isn’t done as well as it was in 2003, it stands out. Yes, I’m thinking about the reuse of Take Me Away. Nothing will ever be as iconic as the camera swinging over in time to catch Jamie shredding the solo of that song like a goddamn rock star and nothing in this film comes close to that level of iconic or cool. Hell, the jokes that Jamie makes about her face when the swap first happens are fine, but it’s nowhere near as shockingly hilarious as “Oh, I’m like the Cryptkeeper!”. Most of the time, it does still work, it still gets a laugh and still can be amusing, but we’ve seen it before done so perfectly.

The one real change, and also huge improvement, comes with fixing something that time has revealed to be problematic. See in the 2003 film, the swap happened due to fortune cookies from a magical asian grandmother, which really hasn’t aged well. That’s been replaced with a psychic who either does the swap intentionally or is a conduit for something that removed the big ick factor that the original had hanging around its neck. So yeah, if you wanted to see the original film without the uncomfortable problematic element, then we have you covered.

Freakier Friday is what one would expect, more Freaky Friday with the whole gang returning to do what worked so well the first time. It’s not really breaking any new ground, but it’s also not so drastically dull to stain the memories of the original. It’s a way to keep the classic 2000s joy going just a little longer and it doesn’t need to be much more. Would a little more originality be appreciated? Of course, in general, it’s always better if a film can find some new way to approach its subject material but sometimes playing the classics well is enough. If you liked Freaky Friday, you’ll like Freakier Friday… I can’t wait to come back in 20 years to see Freakiest Friday when they drag the husbands into a body swap and the film ends with an AI iteration of Take Me Away.