Is it the summer of comedy legacyquels? Between Happy Gilmore 2, The Naked Gun reboot and now, Freakier Friday, it certainly seems like it. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve been laughing a lot more lately due to this trend.
Release Date: August 8, 2025
Directed By: Nisha Ganatra
Written By: Jordan Weiss
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray, Vanessa Bayer, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan Rating: PG for thematic elements, rude humor, language and some suggestive references
Runtime: 111 minutes
In regards to the latest of them, I’ve been anticipating Freakier Friday with trepidation ever since it was announced. The 2003 original Disney comedy is a staple of my childhood, and when I look back at the original, I think it’s honestly one of the funniest family comedies of my generation. Now that I’ve seen the sequel, I’m so happy it actually lives up to it.
Freakier Friday reunites Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan at a time when both actors are having their own big (but very different) moments compared to when they first swapped bodies. Curtis became an Oscar winner just a couple of years ago at the age of 64, and the 39-year-old Lohan has been enjoying a comeback into Hollywood after almost a decade away from the industry. But it’s incredibly comforting to see these two come together and not miss a beat as they return to their roles as Tess and Anna Coleman: a mother and daughter who, like most mother/daughter duos, will always have issues to work through. It’s a blast to see them back at it again for a more rambunctious, yet totally seasoned comedy dynamic that I can also see a whole new generation of young girls falling for.
If you’re a fan of the original Freaky Friday, Freakier Friday is absolutely for you.
One can’t help but do a double-take when it comes to the premise, as Lohan’s Anna is now a mother of her own teen, Julia Butters’ Harper, and she is getting ready to tie the knot to her own Mr. Perfect a.k.a. Eric (played by The Good Place’s Manny Jacinto) after Freaky Friday was about Curtis’ Tess getting married to Mark Harmon’s Ryan. This time around, there’s an added layer because Anna's fiancé has a teen daughter too in Sophia Hammons’ Lily – and the sisters-to-be really do not get along.
After grandma Tess, Anna, Harper and Lily all get their fortune read at Anna’s bachelorette party, Tess gets stuck in Lily’s body, Anna in her daughter’s, Harper in her mom’s and Lily in Tess’. Callbacks are a-plenty between a new mirror scene to rival the “I’m like the crypt-keeper” line and just about every cast member from the original making an appearance one way or the other. (Yes, even Anna’s all-grownup little brother!) Butters and Hammons are not featured in the movie as much as Lohan and Curtis are, but seeing all four of them together is actually a super welcome addition to the plot, and they have some really funny and heartfelt moments of their own.
Freakier Friday finds some quite hilarious reasons to take fans back down memory lane while providing a new story that feels worthwhile. Sure, if you weren’t impressed with the original Freaky Friday, I'm going to guess the new one probably won’t reel you in either. This sequel is for fans like me who laughed out loud time after time watching the original, appreciate the details, and now get to do so again in a completely new phase of life with this continuation.
I love seeing what Tess is like as a grandma and how Anna has become a lot more like her mom in adulthood than she probably would have guessed. (But becoming our parents comes for us all, doesn't it?) The way the plot lines are advanced are rather clever.
The sequel isn’t quite as punk rock as the original (especially due to the more complicated premise), but the movie’s heart is too big for that to be an issue.
The Freakier Friday script isn’t necessarily graceful when it comes to setting up the stakes for the sequel, but once things get freaky one fair Friday and Tess, Anna, Harper and Lily deal with another body-swap curse, the movie gets right on track. While it’s all about belly laughs in the first half, what really helps land the body-swap sequel is the movie's genuine soul. I was just about wiping away my tears during not one but multiple emotional scenes after getting into a laughing fit just 30 minutes earlier, and that’s exactly the kind of feeling I wanted from this movie.
One of Freakier Friday's secret weapons is Manny Jacinto’s Eric – who may be known for dishing out jokes in The Good Place, but in this movie as Anna’s new man, he brings a down-to-earth quality to the film (alongside his quite heartthrobb-y charms) that Harmon held down in the original. In many ways, Freakier Friday can feel like a romantic comedy flipped on its head, and it does so with a beaming confidence.
Another very welcome return in Freakier Friday is Chad Michael Murray’s Jake, who had a hilarious body-swap love triangle of sorts going on with Tess and Anna in the first movie. The sequel plays swiftly with that element in a hilariously believable and lovelably silly way that breathes extra life into the film. And then there’s Vanessa Bayer’s fortune teller character, who brings her SNL wiles to the cast, and makes every scene she is in funnier than the last.
Director Nisha Ganatra successfully helps bring the spirit of the original back with other great comedy experience under her belt, from helming 2019’s Late Night to doing episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Fresh Off The Boat and The Mindy Project. But, there’s something that is a little bit rough around the edges about the Mark Waters-directed original that is somewhat missing here. For example, Anna’s punk rock phase is over, as she now helps manage a pop star (played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), and the soundtrack has a more pop girly framework to it, playing the likes of Chappell Roan and Suki Waterhouse. Still, there are also some fun song choices from women-fronted rock bands, including The Linda Lindas and The Beaches.
There’s also a new Lindsay Lohan song “Baby,” which falls into the pop ballad territory. It makes sense given we’re at a time when female-fronted acts are a lot more hip then they were in 2003, but the new song isn't going to hit the levels "Ultimate" and "Take Me Away" had on my childhood. Perhaps the movie knows this, and thankfully it gives one of the songs an encore in the sequel. I was cheering at the sight of seeing Lohan back in Pink Slip, and yes, she still does that awesome guitar solo like it was yesterday.
Freakier Friday wins as a theatrical comedy for the whole family at a time when they just don’t exist anymore.
Overall, there’s certainly some generic filmmaking choices here that could have used a bit more umph. But we’re also talking about one of the few theatrical family comedies we’ve seen in movie theaters in some time. With that factored in, I’m really impressed it’s packed with a ton of soul as it is. This isn’t high-brow territory, but Jamie Lee Curtis running around Los Angeles in ridiculous teenage-geared outfits with Lindsay Lohan trying to tell her to flirt is one of my highlight moments going to the movies this year, and I know I won't be the only one.
When it comes to the original Freaky Friday, I always found that Jamie Lee Curtis getting to embody a teenager had all the fun, whilst a young Lohan impressively played the straight-laced Tess in a teen body. This time around, both actresses get to play teenagers together, as Anna’s daughter and Eric’s daughter get stuck in their bodies and decide to try to break up their parent’s upcoming marriage, and it’s simply a ball to see these two get into funny scenarios that also remain well-fitted for its PG, family-friendly rating.
Curtis is once again the real scene-stealer here, playing an even more unhinged role as a prim and proper British teen stuck in a grandmother’s body, while Lohan gets to both evolve for the present day and provide the nostalgia of embodying a teen again. With this new dynamic, Freakier Friday is also kind of a buddy comedy in a lot of ways, and that was absolutely the right move for fans like me who want to see more of the Freaky Friday magic.
At a time when other Disney sequels for Hocus Pocus, Disenchanted went straight to streaming and the studio has been stuck in live-action retreads after retreads the past few years, this is a rare legacyquel I’m not rolling my eyes at. It has the kind of fan service I'm looking for, and I'm already looking forward to a second viewing.
