| One of the hardest parts of creating a sequel 20-plus years later is recognizing who the target audience is. Is it for the same audience who are now 40-ish or is it for a new audience who does not know the original? Unsurprisingly, Freakier Friday tries to balance the two, satisfying both audiences without being wholly for either one. The original succeeded because of the cast and getting the exact same cast is a win for elder millennials. | | 2025
Directed by: Nisha Ganatra
Screenplay by: Jordan Weiss, Elyse Hollander and Mary Rodgers
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis
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Anna (Lindsay Lohan) is now almost 40, she’s a single mother, a successful music producer and has a close relationship with her mother Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis), who is still a successful therapist and is still married to Ryan (Mark Harmon). Mark Harmon showing up to be the quiet, steady rock to the Coleman women (really just Tess) is the most satisfying returning cast reveal. Chad Michael Murray also returns as Jake, but he and Anna haven’t been an item for a long time, which also fits. Instead she’s marrying single dad Eric (new cast member Manny Jacinto, an example of perfect casting).
How do you get freakier than Freaky Friday? By having a double switch. This time Anna and Tess change bodies with Anna’s daughter and soon-to-be stepdaughter, respectively. Four people switching bodies is undoubtedly more chaotic, and while more chaos keeps the film moving, it allows less time to actually develop the characters as another person. Freaky Friday did a great job showing how Anna gradually changed from Anna in Tess’s body to a more mature Anna. This time around it is literally teenagers playing dress-up. And the audience doesn’t get to know the new teenagers as well as they already know Anna and Tess.
Julia Butters is a lot of fun as Anna’s teenage daughter Harper, a girl who somewhat takes after Anna, but is less detention-prone, less musically inclined, and way more into surfing. She’s paired with Lily (Sophia Hammons), a British transfer student who is Eric’s daughter. Logically, the audience would be on Harper’s side, but there is no reason to make Lily so insufferable. Perhaps they should have switched bodies with each other, but instead we have a fashion-obsessed mean girl in a grandma’s body so that way we get a lot more jokes about aging. A lot more.
Is it a lot of fun seeing Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis acting as teenage girls? Absolutely. Multiple gags are just straight-up hilarious including Tess on the floor while Anna is falling over a table trying to flirt with Jake who is trying to flirt with Tess; or Eric and Anna taking dance lessons and Manny Jacinto performing the Dirty Dancing sequence sends Anna running right out the door.
Freakier Friday certainly has a lot of fun but more chaos does not make a better movie, it dumbs it down. Freaky Friday is a dumb movie, but it leans into it in such a genuine way that it overcomes, this sequel leans into the chaos.
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