★★★★

There’s a generation out there for whom a sequel to 2003 body swap comedy Freaky Friday enjoys the same nostalgia premium as did the return of Star Wars in 2015’s The Force Awakens to most of the then adult population. That shouldn’t be too surprising. The force is with few in Hollywood as it is with Jamie Lee Curtis. It was, as word has it, only pressure from Curtis that saved Freakier Friday from the same disservice of a streaming debut as befell 2022’s Disenchanted. And why should such sequels be relegated so? Throwing back to the sort of comedy froth that ruled the noughties’ multiplex, Freaky Friday belongs on the big screen. There’s an audience for it and you can bet they’ll show.

Freakier Friday benefits, too, from the logical delay in its gestation. A twenty-two year break has afforded Lindsay Lohan’s Anna Coleman time enough to herself become a beleaguered “teen mom,” with Curtis’ Dr. Tess every bit the heavily involved apex Granny you knew she’d be. It’s not just physical body swapping this time but organic and thoroughly satisfying for the mum’s and daughters reflected by a screen that’s aged with them. Director Nisha Ganatra – whose contribution to noughties froth came in the form of the Heather Graham romcom Cake – makes early hey with parallels that tease at the dramatic change in family dynamics born of two decades’ separation. Where Curtis literally removed Lohan’s bedroom door in 2003 – ‘privacy is a privilege Anna – Lohan daren’t enter her own daughter’s bedroom in 2025, with a door sign warning that any breach to this ‘safe space’ could be triggering. 

Playful digs ripple each way across the generational divide, with Facebook ‘a database for old people’ and a school bake sale mandating that each table accommodate a full panopticon of dietary preferences and intolerances. Admittedly, it’s the ageing gags that predominate in Jordan Weiss’ script, with a deeply game Curtis embracing joke after joke at the expense of her weakened pelvis, sluggish metabolism and inability to rise independently from a crouching pose. Given that Curtis’ infectious energy outpaces everyone else in the film, the jibes almost feel misplaced. It’s no fun getting old but you’d not know it for the riot she’s having here.

Lohan too seems to be enjoying her Netflix day release. Certainly, the film revels in her return, with references to much of Lohan’s back catalogue throughout – nods to Mean Girls (an October 3rd wedding) and The Parent Trap (a British ‘sister’) sit among the more obvious. Her daughter here is Julia Butters’ Harper, a beanie hatted surfer dude, as much at odds with the new British girl in school as her mother. That’s Lily, played with an unnecessarily plummy accent by Sophia Hammons. Her father is Manny Jacinto’s – an even worse accent attempt – Eric, high flying chef extraordinaire and pitch perfect match for the very single Anna. A hop, skip and a jump into the future and the pair are to be married. That’s whether their daughters like it or not. Worse still, the marriage threatens a relocation to London, where, Harper splutters in horror, you can’t surf.

If that all sounds familiar, memories of the original grow only stronger with the entrance of hokum psychic – and business card manufacturer – Madam Jen (Vanessa Bayer), whose palmistry antics at Anna’s bachelorette do lead to a four-way body swap at the strike of twelve. This gives rise to the funniest sequence of the film – a freaky realisation that echoes and, indeed, trumps the first – and a chaotic roll call of sequences that befuddle and entertain by equal measure. Timescales and logic are thrust from the rear view as Ganatra races through material like a director possessed. It’s frenetic, sometimes too much so, but frequently nails the laughs; some big, some hearty.

Much as the show belongs to Curtis, it’s the reunion itself that seals the deal. There’s no doubting Curtis’ chemistry with Lohan, now more worn in from years of maintained contact, but the maintenance of that same magical 2003 energy impresses. Sure enough, between the two, this legacy sequel earns its nostalgia premium.

T.S.