Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Freakier Friday’ on VOD, a Shrieky Reunion of Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan

Freakier Friday (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video) arrives 22 years after its predecessor, Freaky Friday, which arrived 27 years after the movie it remade, Freaky Friday, which arrived three years after the book that inspired it, Freaky Friday. Got that? The 2003 film provides the basis for its sequel, which reunites Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, who played a mother-daughter pair who swapped brains, to highly comic effect. The new film ended up being a nice-enough late-summer success with a healthy $153 million run in theaters, although creatively speaking, doubling down on the switcheroo plot resulted in diminishing returns. Funny how that works, eh?

FREAKIER FRIDAY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: When Anna (Lohan) “decided to be a single mom” – please don’t ask for details, for the movie offers none – she gave up her dream of being a rock star. She led the group Pink Slip for a while, and seems to have had some success – no details on this, either, sorry – but now works as a music producer so she can Be There for her teenage daughter Harper (Julia Butters). Anna’s mom Tess (Curtis) is Very Much There for both of them, and is slightly overbearing about it but it could be far, far worse, and is far, far better because she’s played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who we’ve always loved but love even more lately. Tess calls it “grand-co-parenting,” and she and Anna have apparently stayed on the same page enough for the past 22 years to stave off further brain-swap shenanigans, although the psychological fallout of all that remains unexplored. Details! Who needs ’em? Not Disney movies aimed at 10-year-old girls!

Harper is a sporty type who skips school to go surfing and wears a stocking cap and cutoffs. It’s important to note this in case she should find her brain in another person’s body, because she will inevitably dress that body in said wardrobe regardless of how silly it might look, but it’s helpful for those of us keeping track of who occupies which skull. Not that this will necessarily happen! I’m no movie spoiler person! Harper’s nemesis is her British exchange-student lab partner Lily (Sophia Hammons), who dresses all posh and always brags about her French boyfriend. Could these two be any more opposite? A very ridiculous incident between them at school results in Anna and Lily’s father Eric (Manny Jacinto) meeting in the principal’s office, and the principal (X Mayo) seems more interested in playing matchmaker than disciplinarian; it’s only a matter of time before the entire school erupts in a nigh-apocalyptic food fight and this principal gets pied in the face.

Much to the oh MY god of Harper and Lily, Anna and Eric hit it off and six months later they’re a few days away from getting married. Life! Moves atcha fast. At the bachelorette party, Anna and Tess listen to some prattle from an amateur oracle named Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer), who seems more than a lot of a bit mildly deranged. Lily and Harper also encounter Madame Jen and then there’s an earthquake and I think an incantation, perhaps not in that order, and then everyone goes home and goes to bed and wakes up all wonky-Tuesday, even though yes, I’m well aware it’s a Friday. Get out your pad and paper: Lily and Tess switch bodies, and Anna and Harper switch bodies. Lily-in-Tess’-body complains about arthritis and always having to pee. Tess-in-Lily’s-body is thrilled with the concept of being able to digest junk food again. Anna-in-Harper’s-body and Harper-in-Anna’s-body are mortified in more potentially disturbing ways, not that we get into that. They all decide to pretend to be who they look like, and resulting hijinks include, but aren’t limited to: Silliness with jobs, silliness with life partners, silliness at school, silliness with fashion makeovers, silliness with singing and playing music and a deeply ugly attempt to bust up Anna and Eric’s wedding so Lily and Harper don’t have to be stepsisters. Eesh. Teenagers can be such selfish little shits! 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Proposed sequels to body-swap movies: 2 Family 2 Swap, Vice Versa-er, 17 Again Again, The Hotter Chick, Face/Off and Face/Back On, Like Father Like Son Like Grandson, Dream a Bigger Dream, Po22e22or. 

Performance Worth Watching: Remember when Lohan was a budding superstar who seemed primed for blockbuster smashes and Oscars? Freakier Friday – and to a lesser extent the throwaway Netflix rom-coms she’s made recently – are a reminder of her slick, endearing crossover appeal. She and the recently resurgent Curtis are a terrific pair, even when they’re handed ridiculous material like this.

Memorable Dialogue: Wink, nod, nostalgia: 

Tess: Teenagers.

Anna: I was one once.

Tess: So was I.

Anna: Twice.

Sex and Skin: This movie does not go there, and I’m not sure if we should be grateful or disappointed. 

Our Take: More is always better, right? Well. I think you know the answer to that. The quantity-over-quality industrial complex has a poor track record, and that doesn’t change with Freakier Friday, which doubles the swappery but yields less laughs with a relentless ratatat of lame joke after lame joke. This is in the classic kid-Disney style, of course, so it’s pretty clear, and right in line with the studio’s risk-averse nature, that the intent is to stoke the coals o’ nostalgia so you feel like it’s 1976 or 2003 again. New ground will not be broken. Young people will make jokes at the expense of old people, old people will make jokes at the expense of young people, epic food fights will occur – really, Disney? A food fight? Isn’t that so Nickelodeon? – and Earth keeps steady on its plot around the sun. 

Which means this is a You Know Who You Are Movie – you know, the target audience knows it’s being bullseyed with nostalgia and familiar warm fuzzies, and although that’s not me, You Know Who You Are. The film sets up the fake-it-’til-you-fix-it plot, hopefully before the wedding starts, then lines up a series of comic set pieces involving surfing, pickleball, shopping, pigging out at a fast-food joint and a despairingly inaccurate portrayal of record store employee guys (note: we aren’t chiseled hunks on motorcycles, we’re bald/balding old toots with gray beards), all punctuated with varying degrees of shrill yelling, shrieking and/or screeching from the principals. The support work is more rewarding: Bayer and X Mayo enjoy some amusing drop-ins, and the very stupid pickleball sequence gets a boost from a handful of inspired cameos. 

It all kinda comes down to whether you’ll sigh with much annoyance at a Chumbawamba sing-along or end-credits bloopers. Actually, that’s not true. It all kinda comes down to the appeal of Lohan and Curtis, and to a lesser extent Butters and Hammons, who hold their own in the inevitable sentiment-drenched bits. The reunion of the two stars is more noteworthy than inspired – they seem more than happy to be here, acting the fool and letting rip, especially Curtis, who DGAF with increasing frequency as of late, it seems. Take the DGAF cue from her, and you’ll have a perfectly fine time watching Freakier Friday.

Our Call: Given the choice to take it/leave it, I’d go for the latter without a second thought – it’s often grating but sometimes worth a chuckle or two. But the better-faith assertion is that Freakier Friday meets expectations for those who have any, and those people would do just fine to STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.