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After I was a child within the early 2000s, Lindsay Lohan was throughout the holy trinity of sleepover films: Imply Ladies, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen and Freaky Friday. Every is a sacred textual content, a ceremony of passage watched till you and your pals are all phrase excellent, songs and scenes ingrained into your reminiscence properly into maturity.
Fortunately, Hollywood is hellbent on resurrecting as many present IPs because it presumably can, that means Disney is giving us women now of their 30s a sequel to the 2003 physique swap comedy Freakier Friday. Within the unique film, a mum and daughter swapped our bodies, which allowed them to appreciate how they’ve been unfair to the opposite (don’t fear, they acquired switched again in the long run). Lindsay Lohan is now on the opposite facet of rebuilding her post-child star life and able to reunite with Jamie Lee Curtis, and the result’s completely superb.
Delicate spoilers for Freakier Friday forward.
Let’s begin with the dangerous information: Lohan’s Anna and Jake (Chad Michael Murray) are now not collectively in Freakier Friday, regardless of their will-they-won’t-they romance being the whole plot of the primary film. Anna has determined to go parenthood alone in Freakier Friday, elevating now 15-year-old daughter Harper (Julia Butters) on her personal. Tess (Curtis) is the psychologist-turned-podcaster we bear in mind, intent on helicopter grandparenting as greatest as she will. Anna meets fellow guardian Eric (Manny Jacinto) when Harper will get into bother together with his daughter Lily (Sophia Hammons), and the 2 fall in love. When Anna and Eric quickly plan to get married, a (frankly horrible) mystic at her bachelorette social gathering swaps spirits between the quartet, and it’s a race towards time to repair it.
After I came upon that the storyline beats had been nearly precisely the identical as the unique film simply with extra characters I didn’t need, and even after I noticed the trailer, I used to be braced for the worst. Nevertheless, nothing might have ready me for the spring in my step instantly after watching the complete film, which is a lightness I haven’t felt by movies for many years. Freakier Friday ticks all of the packing containers we’re determined for it to (feel-good storytelling with a light-hearted contact, Lohan at her greatest, foolish nods to girlhood) and that’s going to be plenty of blissful younger girls who’ve been left unfilled by mainstream media.
Freakier Friday is way from excellent, however it’s a millennial teenage dream
One of the best issues in life are these which might be completely imperfect, and in an trade that’s striving for AI greatness and motion-blended superhero glory, that’s refreshing. As a Disney film, Freakier Friday will not be making an attempt to be anything – it’s not making an attempt to compete as a field workplace smash, and it’s not making an attempt to get a brand new viewers base. As an alternative, it’s a love letter to its followers from means again when, and in flip, for Lindsay Lohan, too.
For me, the perfect a part of Freakier Friday is seeing a contented, wholesome Lohan again the place we would like her and completely loving it. She thrives working with Curtis and Murray, and it’s nearly as if no time has handed. Freaky Friday clearly created an setting she felt comfy in, that means she might give her entire coronary heart to the sequel when the timing was biologically proper (in accordance with Curtis, Disney was approached when Lohan might viably have a teen daughter).
Lohan turns as much as our premiere in a nod to the ultimate outfit she wore in Freaky Friday, and the love within the room for what they’ve created is palpable. It exhibits in each one in every of her scenes, effortlessly discovering the stability between legendary Disney icon and a comeback child proving she by no means misplaced the performing chops she was as soon as heralded for. Between them, Lohan and Curtis go full throttle again into the 2000s, with loads of references to their unique film by a stylised narrative construction sometimes left behind within the noughties (assume college meals fights, comedic detention scenes and impromptu style exhibits).
When you’re a fellow baby of the noughties, Freakier Friday has this splendidly uncommon capability to droop time, leaving the on a regular basis stresses of 2025 life at bay. On this bubble, the largest fear is seeing whether or not Pink Slip will play ‘Take Me Away’ (extra on that later), and if Anna will make it to her wedding ceremony on time. There’s love, laughs, and loads of Easter eggs, and it’s genuinely the closest we are able to come to travelling again in time.
New additions maintain up simply as properly, for probably the most half
Nevertheless, this doesn’t imply the brand new parts in Freakier Friday are neglected within the chilly. There’s a recent tackle trendy social stereotypes that doesn’t really feel as if somebody’s mother has written it – as a substitute the film comes throughout as understanding what it means to be a younger girl within the 2020s. No person is taking themselves or something round them too severely, that means the film has flexibility to lean into the unhinged storytelling that kids’s TV was fixated with 20 years in the past.
The one place this doesn’t totally work is with standard singer Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who Anna now manages. She struggles to really feel like a popstar that may genuinely enchantment to the TikTok technology, shoehorned into the plot simply so Anna has sufficient emotional background to make up for her cut up with Jake.
This brings me to my greatest gripe with the sequel – you can not proceed a well known 2000s IP and never use Chad Michael Murray correctly. He was the largest onscreen heartthrob of a technology, and I used to be genuinely overcome with nostalgia by seeing him within the flesh simply earlier than watching the film. I hope he’d nonetheless be with Anna (or on the very least be again collectively by the top), however he’s sparsely seen and is simply used to prop up jokes coming from Tess. There’s no rationalization for why they’re now not collectively, and, with out spoilers, there’s actually a missed alternative to increase his connection to the film’s important dilemma.
However sufficient about Chad (I’ll simply rewatch Sullivan’s Crossing for a Murray hit). What about Pink Slip? Sure, the enduring fictional band is again collectively, and sure, you’ll see the whole again catalog. I like to recommend watching together with your greatest pal for the complete emotional impact of belting the phrases because the band has their onscreen reunion, albeit you could be a bit thrown off by a jarring edit that goes towards the unique movie’s soundtrack. Nonetheless, it is a small value to pay for a cinematic second of desires, and boy, seeing Christina Vidal again the place she belongs is mine.
Frankly, I’m impressed with Freakier Friday. The minute a sequel comes out a long time after the unique, it’s arrange for a shedding streak, however Lohan and Curtis’ easy embodiment of 2003 means the general premise works regardless of the large chunk of time in between. Cinema buffs will say it’s horrible, and so they’re in all probability proper. However Freakier Friday is a worthwhile sequel, and it’s undoubtedly what I – and I think about different noughties kids – need.