Mary Rodgers (daughter of famed Broadway composer Richard Rodgers) hit paydirt with the 1972 publication of her book Freaky Friday, certainly a harbinger of things to come in Hollywood’s obsession with body-switch movies. Although they have been around in one form or another for decades (IMDb lists 168 of them over the years), that book generated a real trend that began with Disney‘s first adaptation of it in 1976, with the pairing of Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris falling into a magical spell and becoming each other in a mother-daughter swap. The format really took hold in 1988 with movies like 18 Again, Like Father Like Son, Vice Versa and the biggest of ’em all: Tom Hanks in Big. Jennifer Garner’s done the idea twice with 2004’s 13 Going on 30 and 2023’s Family Switch. No one did it better than Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin in 1984’s classic All of Me, etc., etc.
But the Freaky Friday franchise is a real go-to thing for Disney beginning with that ’76 edition, followed by a 1995 TV movie with Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffmann, and even a musical version in 2018 for the Disney Channel – all called Freaky Friday. But it was perhaps 2003’s Freaky Friday reboot with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan switching places that made the biggest impact and called for a sequel rather than a remake. To do that, the stars have to get older, and that they have done, so 22 years later we now finally have Freakier Friday, which amps up the action into a four-way switch with Curtis now a grandmother switching places with a 15 year old, and Lohan doing the same with her 15-year-old daughter. It is truly a generational epic, but what worked once, twice, three times (and maybe four) still delivers on the premise, providing laughs, plenty of slapstick opps and genuine emotion thanks to a game cast still showing us what it is like to inhabit other bodies and live to tell about it.
Story-wise, it’s been more than two decades since daughter Anna ( Lohan) and mother Tess (Curtis) did that memorable one-day switch. Tess Coleman is now an author and psychologist who has written a new book. She’s still juggling things including as wife to Ryan (Mark Harmon, returning in an underwritten role) a mother to Anna and grandmother to 15-year-old surfer girl Harper (Julia Butters), who is going through the usual teenage angst of most girls her age including conflicts with mom who is now manager to a popstar, Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who is a handful to say the least (but really adds the musical touch to the film). On top of those headaches, Anna is still trying to deal with Harper and her problems. Along the way she meets Eric Reyes (Manny Jacinto), a single parent and chef who owns a restaurant. They hook up, but he has a daughter, also 15, named Lily (Sophia Hammons), from England, who is hoping to get back to London where she can become a fashion designer one day. She is opposed to dad’s romance with Anna, but it’s too late. Anna and Eric are getting married with the intention of merging their families.
Well, this all leads to more mystery and magic when Tess and Anna have a reading from Madame Jen (SNL’s Vanessa Bayer – very funny) and that leads to Tess switching up with Lily, and Anna switching with Harper. Anyone familiar with the premise can bet everything becomes very frightening and very very complicated, not just with mother and daughter switching, but now also grandmother and daughter’s friend making the swap.
Curtis was nominated for a Golden Globe the first time around, and she just might be again as this seasoned comic pro knows just how to milk every laugh line and show genuine horror as a 15 year old discovering many new wrinkles. She’s a hoot, and Lohan matches her beat for beat. Of course, Lohan wasn’t a newcomer to the premise when she switched places with herself in Disney’s 1998 Parent Trap remake that made her a star just four years earlier, but now she adds a welcome layer of maturity to the process in showing we sometimes become our parents in more ways than one. With all of the comic hijinks you expect, there is some genuine human emotion here and real gravitas in examining our lives from the inside out. Give credit to director Nisha Ganatra and screenwriter Jordan Weiss for taking this Freaky-out to another level with the four way switch and attempting to keep it from complete confusion as to who’s who at any given time. You have to pay close attention.
Among the rest of the cast are several returnees from the 2003 film including Harmon; Rosalind Chao back as Mama P; Stephen Tobolowsky as Mr. Bates; and Chad Michael Murray, flowing hair and all, returning as Anna’s early crush, Jake. He now runs a record store (remember those?). Of the newcomers, Jacinto makes a real impression here as does Hammons, who as Lily is also dealing with the loss of her own mother, and the terrific Butters, who was so good in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and now gets to grow up.
I do have to confess that with all of this body switching and the various subplots Weiss has introduced, it isn’t always easy to keep track of it all, but in the end it pays off, a feel-good comedy ripe for the times as evidenced by the loud laughter at the screening I attended of this nostalgic Disney film that is about as Disney as it gets.
Producers are Kristin Burr, Andrew Gunn and Curtis.
Title: Freakier Friday
Distributor: Disney
Release date: August 8, 2025
Director: Nisha Ganatra
Screenwriter: Jordan Weiss
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Mark Harmon, Manny Jacinto, Chad Michael Murray, Rosalind Chao, Maitieyi Ramakrishnan, Vanessa Bayer, Stephen Tobolowsky
Rating: PG
Running time: 1 hr 51 mins
