Mark Waters’ 2003 remake was fairly enjoyable, had some memorable dialogue, the leads were younger and the film managed to score a surprise hit at the box-office
Still from Freakier Friday
Film: Freakier Friday
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Rosalind Chao, Chad Michael Murray, Mark Harmon
Director: Nisha Ganatra
Rating: 2/5
Runtime: 111 min
The screen adaptation of Mary Rodgers’ 1972 kid-literature classic gets a revisit in Director Nisha Ganatra’s ‘Freakier Friday,’ a film that takes the legacy sequel to old heights by engaging with the same two leads as in Mark Waters’ 2003 remake of the 1976 ‘Freaky Friday.’ Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan go shrill and shrieky in their efforts to rekindle the body-swap magic in this sequel. Mark Waters’ 2003 remake was fairly enjoyable, had some memorable dialogue, the leads were younger and the film managed to score a surprise hit at the box-office. This film though, has less of a chance of raising the bar at the BO.
The intergenerational sparring, a mother-daughter conflict, is partially about teenage rebellion. This time single mother ex grunge rocker turned music biz manager Anna (Lohan), whose wedding to widowed Brit restaurateur Eric (Manny Jacinto) looming after a whirlwind six-month courtship, becomes the brunt for malcontent. It’s basically a role reversal given that in the previous film it was her control-freak psychotherapist mother Tess’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) intent to replace her late husband by marrying Ryan (Mark Harmon) that caused all the ruckus.
Tess goes ballistic and shriek-happy in order to put her point across and it feels like she is demented. The characters are 22 years older and would have found some middle ground - if not peace, by now but the script by Jordan Weiss prefers to reverse the earlier template rather than throw up an original conflict and this proves rather disastrous for the film.
This so-called threat of another major disruption to the family dynamic, is rather forced and unreal. Anna’s 15-year-old daughter Harper (Julia Butters) is vehemently opposed to the possibility of being uprooted and Eric’s daughter Lily (Sophia Hammons), also 15, is hostile to the idea of staying on in Los Angeles. To over stress the point, both teens hate each other and this leads to some sequences featuring mild bedlam.
Anna and Tess, Harper and Lily, both pairs separately land at psychic Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer) table for a reading. Madame Jen tells the teens: “Change the hearts you know are wrong, to reach the place where you belong.” Soon enough, around midnight, Anna and Tess find themselves in the bodies of Harper and Lily, respectively, and vice versa. Thereafter there’s hardly any room for lucidity or nuance. Panic, confusion and all round chaos gets the better of the weak script. After putting a spoke in the marriage plans, the four get to experience each other’s lives through their adversaries eyes, and eventually manage to garner empathy and common ground. Phew! What a relief... you would think at the end - not because everything becomes hunky dory but because you get so uptight having to sit through four females ‘ranting’ it up to unbearable limits, that you just want it all to end. The runtime at 111 min feels too long for comfort.
Anna’s former band, Pink Slip, makes it to a showy concert climax featuring Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). There are montage-like sequences with the lead four, out of their individual comfort zones, doing what they wouldn’t be normally doing. Anna surfing, Tess borrowing a sports car to go on a perilous spin, Lily involved in a pickleball match, Harper improvising in an immigration office interview, Anna/Harper and Tess/Lily raiding the wardrobe - all leading up to comedy that doesn’t yield any laughter. In addition there’s also Ella dressed as a giant strawberry birthday cake? for a Rolling Stone feature photo shoot.
Manny Jacinto as Anna’s fiance is quite the charmer. The two young actresses essaying the roles of the 15 year old teens on opposing sides also manage to score some credits in the acting department. But the return of Rosalind Chao, Lucille Soong, Chad Michael Murray as Jake and Mark Harmonas Ryan serves no purpose. Their roles are minor and forgettable. Lohan and Curtis also seem to be trying too hard to recreate the old magic and it really doesn’t work.
Costume designer Natalie O’Brien makes the foursome look so outlandish that it doesn’t feel real. The narrative plays too loud and garish and the psychobabble is lost in the demented tri-generational interplay.
Ganatra and Weiss fail to get the laughs flowing with their automaton-like attempts to generate comedy.The timing is off and the over-the-top tone does little to encourage engagement. This double-swap comedy is way too laboured to be enjoyable.
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