FREAKIER FRIDAY (2025)

A direct sequel to fantasy comedy Freaky Friday (2003), starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, Freakier Friday captures the original film’s heart and adds a new layer of family fun, all with a healthy dose of millennial nostalgia. Lohan and Curtis return as the body-swapping mother-daughter duo, only now with a new generation to get caught up in their mystical POV switching.

Psychologist Tess (Curtis) is struggling not to get involved in the lives of her pop-star manager daughter Anna (Lohan) and teenage granddaughter Harper (Jula Butters). Their lives change when Harper fights with the British girl at her Los Angeles school, Lily (Sophia Hammons). After being sent to the head teacher’s office, Anna meets Lily’s father, Eric (Manny Jacinto), and the couple immediately hit it off. Before the opening credits end, the couple is engaged and ready to move abroad together, but their daughters are not happy about it.

The film swiftly sets up a realistic and modern situation with two families struggling to seamlessly blend together. Harper never met her father, and Lily’s mother passed away years prior, so both are extra protective of their parent. Anna and Eric plan on spending their life as a married couple in London, but Harper doesn’t want to leave her beloved grandmother and sun-kissed L.A. lifestyle, and Lily desperately wants to return to London and become a fashion designer. Because they are 15-year-old girls, compromise is not an option.

Freaky Friday focused on a mother and daughter swapping bodies, but Freakier Friday features four body swaps instead of two. After a visit to a fortune teller (Vanessa Byer), Tess, Anna, Harper, and Lily all become involved in a body-switching mishap. Anna’s now in the body of her rebellious teenage daughter, Tess in her soon-to-be step-granddaughter, Harper in her mother, and Lily in Tess’ body.

The 2003 film saw the mother and daughter forced to learn a tough lesson about love and compassion. This time, it’s no different, only with some added bickering teens who are hoping to break their parents up (in a sort of reverse Parent Trap). The four women must work together in each other’s bodies to resolve their issues and learn the true meaning of family. It may sound a little schmaltzy, but the journey there is a ball of fun.

The opening act works hard to reintroduce Anna and Tess and introduce these new characters to audiences. We see cool-girl Lily and rebellious Harper butt heads at school, we see their uncomfortable dynamic, and we see Tess trying to keep herself busy now her work is winding down and her daughter no longer needs her. We also see Anna at work, managing a heartbroken pop star (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). The time spent exploring personalities and relationships is valuable in helping the gags land in later scenes.

Freakier Friday is Lohan’s first theatrical leading role since I Know Who Killed Me (2007). As Anna Coleman, it’s not the most effortless performance, especially the emotional lifting required in the last act. The actress, who’s recently been staging a comeback via Netflix rom-coms after some turbulent personal years, may not be the best dramatic actress in the business, but she can still charm with her physical comedy. But wWhen it comes to the tender, quieter moments, she’s comfortably outacted by her teenage co-star Julia Butters.

Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons are having a ball as rival ninth-graders who become adults trapped in teen bodies. However, the less said about the choice to give American Hammons an English accent, the better. They then hilariously embody adults trapped in younger bodies, disgusted with their “crepey” and “dry” skin, but delighted they can drive cars and drink alcohol. The change in physicality when they swap with the older woman is noticeable, helped by the time we get to spend with characters in the first act.

As good as the two teenage actresses are, the film belongs to Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All At Once). She entirely commits to the physicality of the humour of being a 15-year-old trapped in an older woman’s body. There is no scene she won’t steal, no joke she will not get the most from. Freakier Friday is the perfect vehicle for Curtis’ brand of doing too much with no shame about looking silly.

Tess and Anna use their time as teenage girls enjoying their youthful metabolism by binge eating food, bending over without their knees hurting, and generally remembering what it feels like to be young and flexible. Because the film is more about the two teens coming to terms with their parents’ marriage, Anna and Tess (in Lily and Harper’s bodies) get sidelined in detention. Luckily, Lohan and Curtis are having so much fun playing teens in grown bodies, you won’t miss the younger actresses.

Freakier Friday mostly balances all the characters. At nearly two hours long, the last act does outstay its welcome. It becomes very obvious how this film will end, but the script still drags out the drama. A small edit in the last act could have helped the pacing and stopped the lengthy stroll to the finale.

The humour is sharp and on the nose but never mean-spirited. There are jokes about young people being triggered and needing a safe space, and gags about retirees’ penchant for pickleball, but it never feels like picking at low-hanging fruit. Instead, it feels like a gentle ribbing between family members, even if some jokes lack risk and the plot has next to no jeopardy. It could be so easy to mock out-of-touch parents and the therapy talk used by teens, but Freakier Friday’s screenwriter, Jordan Weiss, is more sympathetic to these women. Sure, the comedy can be obvious, but it’s the type of jokes that land because people will recognise themselves, their daughters, and their parents.

Freakier Friday feels like a film that could have come out 25 years ago. It’s the gentle romantic comedy that cinema was missing. It has a charming leading man in Manny Jacinto, a female lead with a seemingly fake job, and ends in a musical sequence. Sure, the plot doesn’t go anywhere unexpected, and the humour is mostly age gags and falling over things, but there is still a space for this more sweet, family-friendly humour.

Smartly, the film doesn’t lean too much on fan service or nostalgia. Freakier Friday is a great film in its own right and paves its own way without needing to rely on the 2003 movie. While there are some nods to the previous film (like an appearance by original love interest Chad Michael Murray), this is a standalone sequel that’ll appeal to both original and new audiences alike.

USA | 2025 | 111 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Nisha Ganatra.
writer: Jordan Weiss (story by Elyse Hollander & Jordan Weiss; based on the novel ‘Freaky Friday’ by Mary Rodgers).
starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto & Mark Harmon.