Publication Date: 08-09-2025

Freakier Friday (2025) review

Dir. Nisha Ganatra

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★

I have a fun little aside about Freaky Friday (2003) I don’t believe I’ve ever shared in some-4,000 reviews I’ve written, so here it goes. I was seven-years-old when that film came out, and my close friend’s grandmother took me, him, and his little sister to the theater to see it in mid-August. I reckon the film was about 20 minutes away from the credits rolling when the screen turned a lime-green color and displayed an “EMERGENCY” message. A loud voice over the intercom told us to “leave the building immediately” as “a life-threatening emergency has taken place in the theater.” The four of us got up, shuffled out of the theater, and back to the car. We drove away to the sight of two or three firetrucks pulling up to the front of the theater.

To this day, I (a) have no idea what occurred in the theater that day and (b) never saw the end of Freaky Friday. I had planned to watch it to completion this week, in advance of the sequel, but life got in the way, as it so often does.

Now, we have Freakier Friday, a sequel that probably should’ve been made within three-to-five years of the original. However, since everything old is new again, and Hollywood is thriving on digging up the bones of millennial culture, it’s never too late to double-back and take care of business. If you enjoyed the 2003 film, I’ll assume you’ll find this one amusing. For me, I recognize that Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan aren’t as ubiquitous in films as they once were, so to see funnel time and energy into this seems like a waste of both their talents.

Once again, the story revolves around a big wedding. Instead of therapist Tess Coleman (Curtis) getting remarried, however, it’s her daughter, Anna (Lohan), who is now in her late thirties and the mother to a teenager named Harper (an effective Julia Butters, who you’ll remember as the plucky little actress from Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood). Living in Los Angeles, Tess is doubling as a therapist and podcast host, Anna funnels her energy into gentle parenting and working at Capitol Records as opposed to her old band, Pink Slip, and Harper hopes to be a free-spirited surfer, out from under her smothering mother.

Enter Eric (Manny Jacinto), a handsome restauranteur from London, whom she meets while he’s opening a spot in LA. A single dad remarkably devoted to his fashionista daughter, Lily (Sophia Hammons), he meets and falls in love with Anna. This is a big problem for Harper and Lily, who can’t even stand one another enough to be agreeable lab partners in chemistry. Even worse, however, the conjoined family is having a hard time deciding whether they should stay in LA (what Harper and Tess want) or move to London (what Eric and Lily want).

A psychic — played by Vanessa Bayer, who is very funny in her some-five minutes of total screentime — the four meet at Anna’s bachelorette party is the one who successfully leads them all to swapping bodies. Here’s how it ends: Lily ends up in Tess’ body; Tess ends up in Lily’s body; Anna ends up in her daughter, Harper’s, body, while Harper ends up in Anna’s body.

There’s an argument to be made that four people changing bodies in a body-swap movie is destined to be overkill, but you’re sure to be constantly reminding yourself “who’s who” or asking “who’s she?” for the next 30 minutes or more. The predictable chaos that ensues following this realization has the characters running around the house to the point where the introduction to each body’s new inhabitants isn’t made expressly clear.

Moreover, Harper and Lily (now Anna and Tess, or Lohan and Curtis) devise a plan to try and get their parents to split up so they can move on with their lives. This involves sabotaging an immigration interview that Eric and Anna have planned. Meanwhile, Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), a singer who relies on Anna for her career, is freaking out because not only did her singer boyfriend dump her, he also wrote a new, well-performing song about his new girlfriend is better than his ex. Ho ho.

Lohan and Curtis slink back into their roles as if it’s not been anywhere near 22 years since they were last in them. Lohan has such a sunny disposition, and at only 39-years-old, she looks and sounds wonderful, making one grateful that she has seemingly found the peace in life she long-desired. She strikes me as someone who, through it all, continues to try to hold onto that fire inside her as if to be a bright spot to herself and everyone around her. Meanwhile, the 65-year-old Curtis is ageless, and harbors the kind of youthful vigor that makes you not even question how she could possibly handle playing a hyperactive British teenager. There’s a scene where Lily (in Tess’/Curtis’ body) does a photoshoot in a Walgreen’s. I didn’t laugh, but I was amused by how Curtis can still throw herself into any situation, regardless of absurdity, and somehow make it palatable.

Freakier Friday‘s biggest problem is it’s just not very funny. Far too many jokes land with a thud, and throwaway side characters, such as Bayer’s psychic, Stephen Tobolowsky as the teacher from the first film, and X Mayo as the principal, wind up stealing many of the laughs. Screenwriter Jordan Weiss also throws in a copious amount of references to other Lindsay Lohan films, such as Mean Girls (Anna’s wedding date is October 3rd), Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (my girlfriend informed me of multiple outfit callbacks), and The Parent Trap. They’re not overtly obvious callbacks. They’re actually subtle enough that, if you catch them, they make you smile. That might suffice when you realize the film isn’t making you laugh very much.

Freakier Friday is marginally better than other belated legacyquels like Good Burger 2 and Zoey 102, but when the floor is set so low, even the mediocre starts to appear desirable.

Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Mark Harmon, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Chad Michael Murray, Stephen Tobolowsky, Vanessa Bayer, Sherry Cola, and X Mayo. Directed by: Nisha Ganatra.