Freakier Friday

As most audiences watching Freakier Friday will remember, over twenty years ago, Anna Coleman (Lindsay Lohan) and her mother Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) swapped bodies in a magical convergence. They walked in each other’s shoes, learned a bit about each other, and learned how to get along. The film didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it was a pleasant, family-friendly comedy anchored by the strengths of its leads, who were totally invested in the silly premise and gave it their all.

Fast-forward to 2025, and Freakier Friday is, in following with the traditions of sequels, all of that, plus more. The “more” in this case adds two more bodies to the body-swap chaos, with all new lessons to learn, more miles to travel in other people’s shoes, and a happy ending for all. In the opening moments of Freakier Friday, Anna is now a mother herself, to young Harper (Julia Butters, from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). For Tess’s part, she’s something of a know-nothing-know-it-all, who espouses words of wisdom on a podcast, like she wrote the book on parenting.

Lily (Sophia Hammons) is Harper’s rival at school. They’re enemies who constantly butt heads with each other over, well, everything. After an incident involving a mishap in their chemistry class, their parents are called into a meeting with the school principal. The two parents meet, and wouldn’t fate have it, they fall in love. Before long, they’re engaged, and Harper and Lily are going to be stepsisters. Neither of them can imagine a worse outcome for themselves than that.

When the body-switch happens, it goes four ways. Harper and her mother, Anna, switch places. And Lily and Tess switch places. Expect jokes from grown-up actors about being, like, totally old and stuff. And expect young actors to speak words of wisdom, beyond their years. Meanwhile, Harper and Lily team up to break up their parents to avoid ever becoming stepsisters. As it turns out, if they do this, they’ll be trapped in their other body forever. In order to change back to their original body, they must have a change of heart. They must learn, and grow, and learn life’s lessons.

Freakier Friday is solidly not-bad entertainment. I’m not the ideal demographic for it, but I suspect that my 8-year-old niece would probably love it. For that, it delivers everything that it promises to deliver, and more. Just like 2003’s Freaky Friday, all of the cast are giving the zaniness of the plot their A-game. No one’s phoning it in here. Jamie Lee Curtis, who never gives anything less than her all, keeps that tradition here. She’s over-the-top, wild, and milks every scene she can for all its worth. Lindsay Lohan, who can be hit-or-miss, is on the “hit” end of the spectrum here and balances a lot of emotions and tones. Julia Butters, who’s one of the best young actors working today, keeps it up, and her switching of identities is flawless.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Freakier Friday arrives in a two-disc release, finding the film on both DVD and Blu-ray, housed in a standard case, along with a slip inside with a code for digital redemption on services like Movies Anywhere.

I’m not a snob when it comes to how a movie was shot, whether the filmmakers opted for digital or for film. I think both formats serve unique needs for the filmmakers, depending on their preferences. Freakier Friday was shot on the Arri Alexa 35 with Panavision Ultra Speed MKII Lenses, so in terms of sharpness and color reproduction, it couldn’t look much better than it does here, even in a 1080p HD video presentation. Freakier Friday suffers from a kind of cinematographic process that a lot of movies in this era have, which makes them look like a cheaply made-for-streaming production. The lighting is all very even, with no variance, and apparently takes place in a world without shadows. Even a light, family comedy deserves to look good. As a Blu-ray product, Freakier Friday looks great—nice and sharp, richly detailed, lavishly colored. As a film, the cinematography seems flat and uninteresting.

Freakier Friday comes equipped with a 7.1 surround sound mix, encoded in DTS-HD MA, which never gets fully utilized. Rear speaker activity is pretty infrequent, with most of the action taking place on the front-end of the soundstage, and side-channel activity is just as infrequent. Which sounds make their way to the surrounds feels oddly arbitrary. Musical score and needle drops remain on the LCR channels, but music playing softly from someone’s radio will envelop the soundstage. Atmospheric effects are almost non-existent—usually you’d hear a tweeting bird, a blowing wind, but this film seems to exist in a vacuum. Where it counts, though, is in volume mixing, and Freakier Friday perfectly levels the mayhem of its magical effects and music selection, with priority given to dialogue, which is crystal clear and intelligible throughout.

For a new release, Freakier Friday boasts a surprising number of special features—mostly featurettes—but also includes a sing-along music video with lyric display and an assortment of deleted scenes.

• Making Things Freakier (HD 7:29) - A behind-the-scenes look at reuniting the cast
• Where Were You When… (HD 2:51) - Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reflect on the original 2003 film
• Flashback Friday (HD 3:48) - Showcasing the nods and references to the first film
• “Baby” Lyric Video (HD 3:16)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 11:44)

Freakier Friday continues the tradition of its predecessor by being solid, inconsequential entertainment. I don’t mean this as a burn or some backhanded compliment. Escapism is an underrated virtue some movies excel at, and Freakier Friday, like Freaky Friday before it, excels at it. These movies invite you to turn your brain off and give yourself to adults acting like teenagers, and teenagers acting like adults, while indulging their silliness. This disc looks and sounds about as good as it can, which, like the film itself, is respectfully fine. For a family movie night, you could do a lot worse. Freakier Friday is Recommended.