Freakier Friday Is a Sequel Worth the 22-Year Wait

It would’ve been easy to go the route of a remake. After all, Freaky Friday with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in 2003 was just another adaptation of Mary Rodgers’ children’s novel of the same name. There had been an earlier film made in 1976 starring Jodie Foster, which, like the book, also featured a dad. Disney hasn’t been shy about mining their old properties, anyway, what with a slew of live-action adaptations of animated classics, so it would’ve been a fairly safe bet to have just remade Freaky Friday updated for the TikTok generation. Toss in a couple of cameos from Curtis and Lohan, the way the latter made an appearance in the musical Mean Girls, and call it a day. But that wouldn’t have been any fun.

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So thank goodness Bob Iger picked up Jamie Lee Curtis’ call and listened to her when she told him Disney needed to make a proper sequel because man, Freakier Friday is FUN. It’s everything a sequel should be and more. Curtis, whom fans constantly hounded about a sequel, stressed that the only way a sequel would work was when Lohan became old enough to play a mom. Lohan, 39, who actually did become a mom in 2023, is also in the midst of having a resurgence of sorts after a considerable period out of the limelight. After being in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, Lohan re-emerged transformed in recent years, Benjamin Button-ing her way to incandescence and reuniting with Curtis for a now-legendary selfie that put the idea in everyone’s heads that, yes, it’s time to make a sequel. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

But why stop at two people swapping places when you can have double the fun? Freakier Friday takes the extra step by throwing in two teenagers who positively detest one another to join the switcheroo. Lohan’s Anna is now a single mom to rebellious surfer chick, Harper (Julia Butters), who constantly butts heads with popular British transfer student Lily (Sophia Hammons), the daughter of Anna’s fiancé, Eric (Manny Jacinto). The franchise’s concept is the literal interpretation of walking in someone else’s shoes, and when you have four people doing just that, things can get a little … freaky.

The plot lifts heavily from the earlier film, as Lily and Harper, now in the bodies of Grandma Tess and Mommy Anna, respectively, try to break up their parents’ engagement. In Freaky Friday, Anna is lashing out as a reaction to Tess’ engagement to Ryan (Mark Harmon), three years after her dad passed away. Eric is a widower, so there’s a reprise of that family dynamic. Meanwhile, Anna is now Harper, and Tess is Lily, and the mother-daughter tandem must spend time navigating high school life as step-siblings in detention. It’s a mishmash of tropes that is almost predictable but delivers enough twists to make things interesting.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, and Sophia Hammons in 'Freakier Friday'

But even if you can already figure out the paint-by-numbers plot, Freakier Friday is a prime example of the journey being more important than the destination. Everything that happens from beginning to end is absurdly entertaining, more than a sequel that comes 20-plus years after has any right to be. Freakier Friday isn’t just a cash grab that capitalizes on nostalgia, a problem with many sequels or remakes of films or TV shows from decades past. But make no mistake, there’s nostalgia aplenty, as Freakier Friday brings back pretty much everyone from Pei Pei (Rosalind Chao), the Chinese restaurant owner who gives them a magical fortune cookie; to Jake (Chad Michael Murray), Anna’s first love; to the original band members of Pink Slip Maddie and Peg (Christina Vidal and Haley Hudson); to Harry (Ryan Malgarini), Anna’s younger brother. If Harold Gould, who passed away in 2010 at 86, were still around, the film would’ve found a way to have Grandpa Alan in there, too. There’s even a delightful crossover cameo from Elaine Hendrix, who played Lohan’s wicked soon-to-be-stepmother in The Parent Trap, another beloved Disney classic.

Freakier Friday works so well because it feels like it’s brimming with love. Curtis and Lohan have such irrepressible chemistry that oozes out from the screen, and the entire film feels like everyone involved was just having fun. It feels as authentic and light-hearted as the original, and while the two young leads simply can’t hold a candle to the undimmable brilliance of Jamie Lee Curtis or the resurgent luminescence of Lindsay Lohan, it really doesn’t matter because the two are a genuine delight in every single scene. Curtis’ aptitude for comedy is severely underrated; her expressiveness, timing, and physicality are right up there with masters of the genre like Lucille Ball or Carol Burnett. She’s operating on another level compared to everyone else, but Lohan never lags behind. The two are just having fun acting like awkward teenagers, and it still feels fresh and entertaining.

Manny Jacinto, who spent time in Manila to attend the premiere and promote the film, isn’t just window dressing himself. Sure, they probably needed to cast someone as beautiful as Lindsay Lohan, but Jacinto has ample range to sell the drama to temper all the comedy. Because just as Freakier Friday is an explosion of laughs, it’s also earnest as a family drama, with the heartfelt moments and revelations just as powerful as the original. Jacinto plays cluelessness so endearingly — whether as a fake monk in The Good Place or a Sith lord’s alter ego in The Acolyte — and now as a single father who has no idea that the most important women in his life have all body swapped.

Freakier Friday is the best kind of sequel. It pays homage to the original by bringing back as much of the original cast as possible, reinvents or references favorite scenes, and puts a new twist on an old concept. Best of all, it has twice the heart. Seasoned, Oscar-winning Curtis and glowing, new mom Lohan are back with more maturity, better comedic chops, and an infectious zest for life that makes Freakier Friday an absolute must-watch for fans of the original and a wonderful new way to introduce families to a classic.