Freaky Friday (2003) Movie Review streaming on Disney+.
Lindsay Lohan and late 90s-early 2000s Disney remakes of beloved classic films just seemed to be a recipe for success. The Parent Trap and Herbie Fully Loaded have their respective fans, but it’s her hilarious, dynamic chemistry with Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday that seemingly stands out above the rest, enough to warrant a sequel over 20 years later!
Bringing a family-friendly, punk-rock style to the body-swap story, Freaky Friday follows widower Tess (Curtis) and her teenage daughter, aspiring musician Anna (Lohan), who are often at each other’s heels, not having properly been through the grieving process together. However, they both get an unhinged dose of each other’s realities, when they simultaneously read aloud the same fortune cookie, causing the two to swap bodies, and with incredibly funny results, have to live each other’s distinctly different lives.
Director Mark Waters (who went on to direct Mean Girls after this) captures such an energetic, dynamic, punk rock feeling that acts as such a nostalgic time capsule for the early 2000s. From Anna’s punk-rocker aspirations, to the visual aesthetics and camera work, this feels like a story that works so perfectly within the time it has been set and made, allowing the insanity to really run rife without feeling tonally abstract. The punk-rock soundtrack also works, not just as the narrative thread for Anna, but the energy that film carries too.
What also needs to be appreciated about Freaky Friday and the early 2000s era of Disney live-action films, is that while they are fun, exciting, family-friendly flicks, they are also dealing with mature themes in an accessible, but not dumbed-down way. The grief that Anna and Tess need to work through, and the emotions that arise from their conflicts, feel quite authentic, really driving the emotional core of the story. It’s not that this element is lost in more modern family films, but there is a rawness to how these themes were explored 20 years ago that packs a bit more impact than now.
And the reason it works is because of how committed Lohan and Curtis are to both of the film’s crucial elements – the emotion and the comedy. Curtis is arguably giving an awards worthy performance here, leaning so hard into the hilarity of being a woman in her 40s acting like a teenager, while never sacrificing the heart of the character. Lohan is equally as fantastic in the film, almost re-treading some of the steps seen taken with her British twin character in The Parent Trap just years before.
Even though there are elements of Freaky Friday that do fall a little short, and sometimes into the more trope-ridden holes of the Disney formula, it’s still undoubtedly a hilarious, incredibly fun, and touching family comedy that has withstood the test of time (and warranted a sequel 20 years later) because of the dedicated lead performances.
Freaky Friday (2003) is available to stream on Disney+
