Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan play a bickering mother and daugther who magically switch bodies in an update of the original 1976 movie.
--Randy
Freaky Friday
Directors: Mark S. Waters
Producers: Andrew Gunn
Writers: Heather Hach And Leslie Dixon
Features: n/a
Characters:
Anna Coleman...Lindsay Lohan
Tess Coleman...Jamie Lee Curtis
Harry Coleman...Ryan Mallarini
Jake...Chad Murray
Grandpa...Harold Gould
Ryan...Mark Harmon
Genre: Comedy
Review:
"Freaky Friday" is a nice, pleasant, little film that is a remake of a much earlier nice, pleasant, little film of the same title made in 1976 and based on a novel by Mary Rodgers. In the earlier film Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris starred as daughter and mother who get their identities reversed in the eternal battle of the generations. This battle continues today as it is now Lindsay Lohan playing Anna Coleman and Jamie Lee Curtis playing her mom, Tess Coleman, who get the mind swap. In 1995 Shelly Long appeared in a made for television movie of the same title. Lindsay Lohan also starred in Disney's remake of "The Parent Trap." In this current incarnation of "Freaky Friday" which should cause no harm, people may be pleasantly surprised to see Jamie Lee Curtis once dubbed "the Queen of Horror" as a mother to a young girl as precocious as a Disney teen can get.
The film starts out as Anna Coleman is once again getting an attempted wakeup from her mother Tess. It is a daily ritual to awaken Anna so she can get ready for high school. At the same time her younger, ogre of a brother Harry(Ryan Mallarini) is being the brat to his sister that all brothers tend to be. Tess in addition to overseeing her family is in the throes of remarrying. She is trying to juggle her job as a therapist, whose upcoming honeymoon departure is upsetting all her needy patients, with her job as a mother and soon to be bride. Anna is in her teen years and is holding a grudge over her mother remarrying even though her Dad is dead. The two females clash on everything. While attending a dinner at a Chinese restaurant they are each given fortune cookies that turn around their lives by causing their psyches to switch. Now both must walk in each others shoes with often hilarious results. The teenaged bodied Tess finds herself navigating through her daughter's California high school while Anna gets a taste of the adult world in her mother's body.
Lindsay Lohan is believable as a body possessed by her mother, Tess. Lohan has a mature look due to her freckles and pasty white skin which help her look older along with her not being exactly svelte. Lohan is able to use her eyes extremely well to show the frustration she is going through as a once powerfully independent adult now trapped in a teenage body. I remember seeing Jamie Lee Curtis in a crowd of autograph seekers in Austin, Texas about two years ago doing a sort of dance as she effortlessly signed autographs and worked her way through the people. She has a natural fountain of youth inside her and is very believable as an adult Anna that appears more freed than trapped. Jamie Lee Curtis is able to hunch over a table with Anna's obsession, Jake(Chad Murray), letting the sparkle in her eyes and radiant smile tell her age.
Jake, for some odd reason, comes off very square. At first he appears to be a sort of bad boy that Anna is gaga over and can barely stand to look in his direction. As Jake gets to know Tess's Anna he appears even more square. In fact, Jake now seems too mature for Tess's Anna and looks down on her. When he meets Anna's Tess he connects right away. Soon he only has eyes for the body of an older woman inhabited by Anna. This creates an interesting situation considering this movie is family fare. It gets more complicated when Tess's fiance, Ryan(Mark Harmon) sees the body of his betrothed wrapped around Jake on a motorcycle with a wide smile on her face.
Something that does expose the real life lack of understanding by adults is the scene of Anna's Tess sitting at a table with Jake dicussing cool music. In the background a generic version of Britanny Spear's "Baby One More Time" is playing and both young people are raving about how good the lyrics are. Then for some odd reason the rock group called The White Stripes is brought up and both kids diss it. Right now Britanny Spears seems to be "out" while The White Stripes are the hottest act going. The screenwriters, Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon, were probably so busy watching reruns of "The Lawrence Welk Show" to realize the passage of time. The director, Mark S. Waters, was undoubtably sitting next to them to allow this faux pas to make "Freaky Friday" out of date before it has even opened.
As can be expected by the end of the film Anna and her mother have gained a new respect for each other with Anna now being able to appreciate her future step-father and even her little brother Ryan. "Freaky Friday" comes off well as a family movie with everyone giving a good performance, but at the same time nothing sets this movie above it's predecessor. The film is content to copy and not innovate, but we don't expect it to either.
I would give it three out of five stars.
----Randy