Because there was no way Lindsay Lohan was ever going to crawl out of the depths of the toilet into which her career descended after the 2000s, a sequel to Freaky Friday was probably inevitable after her trio of Netflix movies failed to truly relaunch her as a “star” (stop trying to make “Lohanaissance” happen). And since Jamie Lee Curtis has always had a kind heart, she was fully on board with the project. One that came about right as a certain capitalization on “millennial nostalgia” was part of the motivation behind what could get “new” content greenlit (see also: the forthcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2 or even Shrek 5). What’s more, because Lohan performed “favorably enough” in her Netflix films (which, to be clear, are all absolute shite, with Irish Wish taking the cake), it seemed that Hollywood was ready to take a chance on her in a more legitimate way again: the studio movie.
And, considering that Lohan has such a history with Disney Studios, who better than that entity to give her the opportunity to be in a “right proper” movie as the lead for the first time in eighteen years. For, in all honesty, Lohan hasn’t been in a major studio movie as the star since 2007’s Georgia Rule, which was the first time when her party life really started to affect her professional life in that the producer of the movie, James G. Robinson, actually had to write Lohan a letter telling her what a fuck-up she was and that she needed to get it together for the sake of the production. Among the highlights of that letter were the accusations that Lohan “acted like a spoiled child” and had “frequently failed to arrive on time to set.” (Perhaps just another way in which she wanted to channel Marilyn Monroe.) These latenesses or full-stop absences were due to, per Lohan and her representatives, “not feeling well.” Something Robinson addressed in the letter by saying he was “well aware that your ongoing all night heavy partying is the real reason for your so-called ‘exhaustion.’”
So yes, 2007 was not only a bad year for Britney, career image-wise, but also for Lohan. Indeed, it’s no secret that part of Freakier Friday’s cachet is a desire to see someone who was so trashed and hounded by the media in the 00s come back from the trauma of it all. Since it’s apparent that Britney really didn’t. Though it can be said Lohan’s former frenemy (and part of the trio in the car that night in 2006 that launched a thousand headlines and memes), Paris Hilton, has been vindicated in the last decade as well. In large part, thanks to a rebrand that essentially sought to erase her 00s image of being a vacuous (and racist/homophobic) party girl.
In Lohan’s case, however, there hasn’t been a rebrand, so much as a constant return to the movies that made her famous in the first place (even Irish Wish had callbacks to Freaky Friday and Mean Girls)—extending to her nonstop and inexplicable wealth of endorsement deals. So of course, not only would she want to be in a sequel to Freaky Friday, but also continue to allude to the other two primary films that made her a success in her childhood and teen years: The Parent Trap and Mean Girls (because other movies in her Disney oeuvre, like Life-Size, Get a Clue and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, were much more niche). As for the former film, the parallels appear immediately in the form of the warring dynamic between Anna Coleman’s (Lohan) daughter, a quintessential “California girl” (complete with the surfing predilection), Harper (Julia Butters), and a new-in-town, rather stuck-up British classmate of hers named Lily Reyes (Sophia Hammons). Obviously, it reeks of the dynamic between Hallie Parker and Annie James (both played by Lohan) in The Parent Trap (yet another remake of a Disney movie in Lohan’s oeuvre). Something Lohan was sure to play up with some of her sartorial choices on the infinite publicity tour for Freakier Friday.
As for the high school that Harper and Lily attend, once again, it was filmed at none other than Palisades Charter High School, just before it burned down in January 2025. As a matter of fact, Curtis was certain to cite Freakier Friday as a love letter to Los Angeles in the aftermath of the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, with the movie also being shot at the now burned-down Altadena Town & Country Club for Tess’ (Curtis) a.k.a. Lily-as-Tess’ pickleball scene. To an extent, maybe Freakier Friday is “passable” as a love letter to said city, but, more than anything, it’s a love letter to Lohan’s short-lived career heyday. Almost as if to further emphasize that point, Elaine Hendrix a.k.a. the “evil (would-be) stepmother” of The Parent Trap, Meredith Blake, is given a totally non sequitur role as “Blake Kale” (the first name of course being a nod to Meredith’s last name), an editor in charge of handling the piece on Anna’s biggest client, the mononymous Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). Because, that’s right, Anna is now a talent manager for musicians rather than being one herself, with the running story being that she “gave up” her chance at being a “rock star” because she had Harper. Indeed, the math of the movie places Anna at twenty-two years old when she had her child, with thirty-nine-year-old Lohan playing “thirty-six-and-a-half” and sixteen-year-old Butters playing fourteen. So sure, it’s like a Gilmore Girlsage difference. Though Anna and Harper hardly share the closeness of Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel). Nor is Tess exactly “Emily Gilmore [Kelly Bishop] material.”
For, once again, Freakier Friday, like its 2003 predecessor, is meant to highlight the fraught, contentious relationship between a teenage girl and her mother—and that mother’s imminent wedding to a dude she resents. Only this time, it’s Anna going through it with Harper, who, like Anna as a teenager, has little empathy for her mother’s profession or her plans to get married to some “interloper.” More specifically, her nemesis Lily’s father, Eric (Manny Jacinto). And, obviously, with this new form of Asian representation in the sequel, the way the “magic” of the body swap (presently a quadruple instead of a double one) works can’t be “offensive” the way it was in the first movie. That is to say, with a Chinese restaurant owner touting a garish accent giving Anna and Tess a fortune cookie with the same fortune inside of it (“She did something… Some strange Asian voodoo,” Tess-as Anna declares).
And so, as a sign of its “updated” views from the original, the magic comes from a daffy, “multi-hyphenate” psychic/fortune teller named Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer, another SNL alum besides Chloe Fineman who appears in the movie). And no, what isn’t included in the trailer is the wannabe demon voice she gives at different points in the process of delivering their “prophecy”: “Change the hearts you know are wrong, to reach the place where you belong.” It’s a much more reduced “curse” than the one in the fortune cookie that Tess and Anna get: “A journey soon begins, its prize reflected in another’s eyes. When what you see is what you lack, then selfless love will change you back.”
Regardless of the revamped wording, it’s the same old method for returning to one’s body in Freakier Friday, though Tess and Anna apparently have convenient amnesia about the fact that “all” it takes is empathizing with the person you can’t stand in order to be restored to your body. But it’s Harper and Lily who are told the little rhyme by Madame Jen, information they keep from Tess and Anna once they realize that now that they’re the adults, they can make the decisions that will free them from a life saddled together. It is especially Lily who doesn’t want the nuptials between Anna and Eric to happen, for it would mean potentially having to stay in Los Angeles. And London is where, supposedly, her heart lies—along with a fashion school she wants to attend. Harper, too, would rather die than leave her beloved L.A. and all the surfing potential that comes with it. And so, like Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and Cady Heron (Lohan) in Mean Girls, the two hatch a plan to take down their respective parent’s relationship rather than Regina George (Rachel McAdams). Hence, the creation of a list titled The Plan that looks a lot like the style and structure of what Janis writes on her chalkboard (in addition to mimicking Hallie and Annie’s plot to get their parents back together, rather than tear them apart).
Unfortunately for Lily, Harper, while in her mother’s body, has the chance to understand just how genuine Eric’s love for her mother is, making it more difficult to treat him like shit so that the relationship can disintegrate. Part of that plan being to get Harper-as-Anna back in contact with Jake Austin (Chad Michael Murray), who now owns a record store. This giving director Nisha Ganatra and writer Jordan Weiss (best known for Dollface) the chance to further play up the nostalgia of the 00s by having Lily-as-Tess loom in the background with Britney’s In the Zone album cover over her head as “camouflage” (later, she’ll also use Madonna’s True Blue). All while she advises her on how to be “seductive”—these instructions not only proving Lily’s inexperience with boys (though she insists she has a French boyfriend), but additionally prompting Jake to question whether or not Harper-as-Anna is having a stroke. What’s more, Jake’s fetish for older women (but especially Tess) has only gotten more pronounced since the Coleman women fucked with his head back in ‘03. Apparently to the point where he’s still “got it bad” for women who dress like Tess did when Anna was in her body (and also have Tess’ same short haircut from that era).
In order to “dig Jake up,” so to speak, Lily-as-Tess tells Harper-as-Anna about a “database for old people” known as Facebook. Just one of many “generational gap” jokes made at the expense of Anna and Tess. But, more than anyone, Tess, who bears the brunt of all the ageism. This mainly perhaps 1) Curtis knows how to deal with this kind of comedy without making it feel totally mean-spirited because she’s “in on the joke” herself and 2) Lohan isn’t quite ready to put a spotlight on her current status, from the Gen Z viewpoint, as being “old.” Which is why the only cutting remark she really gets from her daughter is about how Anna’s skin feels like it’s crying out for water. Then, of course, there’s the same dredged-up bit about teenagers being able to eat whatever they want because of their metabolism. Or as, Tess-as-Anna triumphantly phrases it to Anna-as-Tess while eating fries in Freaky Friday, “This food may make you blow up like a balloon, but it will do nothing whatsoever to me.”
And, for some, Freakier Friday will do nothing whatsoever for them. Because not everyone is charmed by the nostalgia that Freakier Friday largely coasts on, with a review from Time (the one that was scathing enough to get Curtis’ attention) saying it all with the title, “Freakier Friday Is Humiliating to Everyone Involved.” Other, kinder reviews cite Curtis as the saving grace of the movie, for it’s clear she’s having the time of her life playing Tess playing a teenager…again. And this, in truth, is the bulk of what makes the movie feel so exuberant. Even as it cashes in on the well-worn storylines and “winks” from Lohan’s past filmography. For while it’s designed to be a vehicle for her, Curtis is the one who stands out the most (sort of like what happened with Angelina Jolie outshining Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted—which is probably going to get a sequel any day now).
Genna Rivieccio
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