Freakier Friday (United States, 2025)

Freakier Friday isn't a good movie, but it doesn't really intend to be. That's because Disney's late-to-the-party sequel to its 2003 remake of the earlier 1976 version (itself adapted from the book by Mary Rodgers) is pure product without a hint of artistic inspiration. It's designed as a comfort zone where viewers in fluffy slippers and fuzzy pajamas can gather together and wallow in something familiar and unthreatening. And, aside from how old Mark Harmon looks, there are no surprises. The whole thing plays like a lazy made-for-TV movie with a script and acting no better than what one might find in one of those endless Descendants or Zombies titles. 

The movie brings back the main characters from 22 years ago – Jamie Lee Curtis' Tess, who has graduated from being "Mom" to the "Grandma" role, and Lindsay Lohan's Anna, who has replaced Tess as the soon-to-be-married woman. Also thrown into the mix are Anna's daughter, Harper (Julia Butters), and her soon-to-be-stepdaughter, Lily (Sophia Hammons). There's significant friction between Harper and Lily, which threatens the stability of the nascent mixed family. Then along comes a fortune teller (Vanessa Bayer) who does a little palm reading and, the next morning, Tess has swapped with Lily, while Anna and Harper have executed a similar exchange. The rest of the movie is a combination of fish-out-of-water skits, half-baked kumbaya life lessons, and an eventual reset. 

One of the guilty pleasures of the 2003 Freaky Friday was enjoying how Curtis and Lohan explored the awkwardness of discovering themselves in different bodies. The actors did a good enough job that we never forgot that inside the youthful form of Anna was a much older woman (and vice versa). With Freakier Friday, there's plenty of camp but not much in the way of convincing the audience of the underlying situation. With Tess, for example, I never really believed her seventy-something body was inhabited by a teenager. She just seems like Jamie Lee Curtis going off the rails – not much different from what she did in The Last Showgirl. In contrast, Lindsay Lohan feels too restrained, and the younger actresses display a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time quality. 

The movie is neither sufficiently funny nor charming to warrant attention. It doesn't have much of a story to tell, and many of the things that worked (to one degree or another) in Freaky Friday fall flat here. Perhaps the biggest disappointment is how unambitious the whole project is, given the canvas. So many avenues are left unexplored in favor of a bland, direct route. I enjoyed director Nisha Ganatra's previous project, The High Note, but she proves unable to imbue this cliché-riddled story with the freshness she uncovered five years ago. I'll lay at least some of the blame at the feet of writers Elyse Hollander and Jordan Weiss, whose screenplay feels like the worst kind of fan fiction. 

I recall being pleasantly surprised by Freaky Friday. The same cannot be said for the sequel. Disney is generally good at sniffing out stale brands where there's still money to be made, and even if Freakier Friday manages only a modest box-office return, it will still pad the studio’s streaming library. That may be smart business, but it’s lousy filmmaking. This movie is built to be consumed, forgotten, and replaced — a product, not an experience.

Freakier Friday (United States, 2025)