There’s a school of thought going around that Hollywood is out of original ideas. And although there are fresh and exciting movies being made (particularly on the indie front), it’s hard to argue against the theory, since many big studio films are either sequels or remakes. Or, as in the case of Freakier Friday, a sequel to a remake.
Freakier Friday is, as one would suspect, a sequel to the 2003 romp Freaky Friday, which itself was a remake of a 1976 movie of the same name. Taking place some 20 or so years after the events of the last movie, this one sees Anna Coleman (Lindsay Lohan reprising her role from Freaky Friday) with a teenage daughter of her own named Harper (Julia Butters from Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood). Anna also has a fiancé named Eric (Top Gun: Maverick’s Manny Jacinto) who himself has a daughter named Lily (Up Here’s Sophia Hammons). The aches and pains of merging two families into one is a lot to take, and Anna’s therapist mother, Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis, also back from Freaky Friday) is along for the ride as well.
Sounds like these characters need to walk a mile in each other’s shoes, doesn’t it? And, in that Freaky Friday tradition, they do. Except this time, there are two sets of switch-a-roos. Anna and Harper swap bodies, and Tess and Lily do, too. So, the young girls get a taste of different stages of adulthood, and the adults get to be young again.
Freakier Friday was directed by Nisha Ganatra (The High Note) from a screenplay by Jordon Weiss (Dollface) and Elyse Hollander (her first produced feature), and as expected, it’s twice the body-swapping antics of Freaky Friday. And while this is fun, it’s all just recycled fun. It’s a lot of the same gags from before, just with different characters. The teens grapple with being grown up, and the older women enjoy their ache-free, high-metabolism bodies.
The issue with twice the body-swapping antics is that Freakier Friday gets a bit convoluted. Of course, each character has their own motivation for what they plan and do, so the narrative gets a bit messy at times. The body swapping is a simple concept, but with too many participants, it needlessly complicates itself. And that’s not even considering that one has to keep track of who is in whose body, which is, in the beginning of the transformations, a bit tricky. It’s too much plotting for a silly comedy.
For what it’s worth, the four actors do wonderful things with their characters’ transformations, particularly Julia Butters and Jamie Lee Curtis. Butters nails Lohan’s mannerisms perfectly, so it really does seem as if she is channeling her on-screen mother. And Curtis is nothing short of hilarious – she seems to be having a ton of fun being Lily, and that fun is infectiously passed on to the audience. That’s where Freakier Friday is at its best – when the girls are having fun being each other. And the performances save the film.
Even though things get a little muddy in places, Freakier Friday does have a blast with its nostalgia. Looking in on these colorful characters 20 years later and seeing what they’ve done with themselves is a movie in itself, even without the transformation angle. And poor Anna – she’s had to experience the freakiness as a teen back then and as a parent now. While not imperative, watching Freaky Friday before watching Freakier Friday is helpful as a refresher, because there are a lot of cool callbacks and references that won’t be as effective if the viewer goes in completely cold.
So, if you can follow along, Freakier Friday is a fun enough little romp. It rehashes a lot of its predecessor, but that’s to be expected. It delivers on laughs, and sometimes, that’s all a movie fan needs or wants. Think about it just enough to keep up and then enjoy the ride. Just don’t expect to think too much about it when the lights come up, either.
GRADE: C+
Rating: PG for some suggestive references, rude humor, language, and thematic elements
Running Time: 1 hour 51 minutes
Release Date: August 8, 2025
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
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