Producers: Kristin Burr, Andrew Gunn and Jamie Lee Curtis Director: Nisha Ganatra Screenplay: Jordan Weiss Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Rosalind Chao, Chad Michael Murray, Mark Harmon, Christina Vidal Mitchell, Vanessa Bayer, Stephen Tobolowsky, X Mayo, Lucille Soong, Ryan Malgarini, Haley Hudson, Santina Muha and Jordan E. Cooper Distributor: Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures
Grade: D
Confusing freneticism with fun, Nisha Ganatra’s sequel to the 2003 version of the repeatedly filmed body-swap comedy “Freaky Friday” doubles up on the swapping but reduces the number of laughs to near nil. It’s not so much “Freakier” as “Franticker.” And the sad thing is that “Freakier Friday” might have worked, or at least been tolerable, had Jordan Weiss’s script been cleverer and Ganatra’s directing more disciplined.
In any event, as Weiss and Ganatra have it, Anna Coleman (Lindsay Lohan), the teen musician of the original, is now the widowed mom of Harper (Julia Butters), a surf-loving, rebellious high school student. Anna’s given up her own music career and is now serving as manager and helpmate to international singing sensation Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). (Editor Eleanor Infante inserts footage of the old Capitol Records building to emphasize the plot’s music cred, which is itself a kiss of death for any movie about the business.) Ella is at present distraught over being dumped by her boyfriend, who’s had the bad grace to write a song about the breakup.
Which helps to explain, perhaps, why Anna’s a bit slow on the uptake regarding Harper’s ongoing feud with her chem lab partner Lily Davies (Sophia Hammons), a snooty Brit expatriate who thinks herself a model of fashion sense. Anna’s intrusive mother Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis), who’s just started a podcast about relationships (rather late in the day, one might note) steps in to help, but that doesn’t prevent a lab accident that pretty much destroys the classroom (comically, of course).
In the aftermath Anna and Lily’s father Eric (Manny Jacinto), a widower and a chef who’s come to L.A. to open a new restaurant and give his daughter space to get over her mother’s death, are called before Principal Waldman (X Mayo). They immediately hit it off and get engaged, much to the consternation of their daughters, who loathe the thought of becoming sisters and either moving back to London (as Lily wants) or staying in California (Harper’s desire). Their animosity toward one another explodes at a campus bake sale they turn into a food fight, in which poor Waldman, screaming like a banshee, gets a pie in the face. (Isn’t it time it wasn’t okay to cast imposing black women in such mortifying roles?) The girls are sent to detention, where they must deal with Mr. Bates (Stephen Tobolowsky, another returnee, and looking very old; he does, however, have one of the few funny lines when he explains why he’s still around by admitting that the teachers’ pension fund invested in crypto). But they unite in the hope of breaking up their parents’ engagement.
Then comes the expected switcheroo, here engineered at an engagement party by a goofy fortune teller/barista/and much more (Vanessa Bayer, straining for laughs that never come). Anna and Harper swap bodies, as do Tess and Lily; but the girls’ attempt to prevent the upcoming nuptials persists, even as all four try to figure out how to reverse the switch while getting what they want.
From this point “Freakier Friday” devolves into a succession of sketches, most desperately unfunny, like one where Tess/Lily takes a sports car for a joy ride or another where Harper/Anna tries to bungle an interview with an immigration official (Santina Muha, as hyper as Bayer). But the worst idea was to drag Jake (Chad Michael Murray, returning as well) back into the fray. Resurrecting his interest in Tess after so many years—especially as she’s married to Ryan (Mark Harmon, looking even worse for wear than Tobolowsky and practically invisible except for a truly embarrassing sequence in which he’s paired with a terrified Tess/Lily in a pickleball match)—is more creepy than freaky.
One could go on and on about the chaotic randomness of what goes on in the movie. Toss in a weird dance sequence or slapstick surfing lesson! Have Curtis indulge in another pratfall! Stage a PR stunt or performance with Ella that proves that production designer Kay Lee and costumer Natalie O’Brien haven’t a clue about how to either mimic or satirize today’s music scene. And, of course, arrange things so that after all the hullabaloo everyone undergoes a change of heart that reverses the swap and leads not just to familial harmony but a chance for Anna to take to the stage again, this time with Harper on guitar. Infante threads all this together as best she can, but the effort is unavailing.
Curtis, whose lack of subtlety has always been a hallmark of her persona, is especially uninhibited here, and the result is not pleasant to behold. Lohan is more restrained, and so more ingratiating, and both Butters and Hammons are pleasant enough when the script allows them to be; Jacinto is fine as a guy who, quite frankly, is too nice to be true (a quality that apparently attracts Coleman women, since Harmon’s Ryan shares it). Murray does what he can with a part that requires him to act like a low-rent version of Brad Pitt, not an enviable task. Other than in Ramakrishnan’s concert scenes, Lee’s work is fine, but O’Brien contrives some really garish dresses for the party scenes, especially for Curtis; Matthew Clarke’s cinematography is bright, sometimes blindingly so, while Amie Doherty’s score tries to bulldoze you into a good humor but fails.
The 2003 version of “Freaky Friday” might not have been the best of the body-swap movies that were a thing for a time, but it was one of the most popular, judging by, if nothing else, the number of remakes. Its fans deserve better than this sorry sequel, though perhaps many of them will be blind to its defects, at least for a while, out of sheer determination to have a good time no matter what.