Can I just say 2003 was an amazing time to be a teenager? So many great movies and in terms of music, Disney was at its peak. That summer I remember setting a goal to see three movies in theaters.
Freaky Friday, Finding Nemo and one other… I think it was Rugrats gone Wild. The Lizzie McGuire movie was also around that time and another special theater experience that stuck with me for months.
All these years later, I'm still not sure if the rivalry between Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan had any truth to it... but I'll always be Team Lindsay. She may not play guitar like she does in the movie but she has a much better singing voice.
In terms of Lindsay Lohan teen Disney movies, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is still my favorite.
But I think I watch Freaky Friday a little more frequently. Maybe once every year or so while the other, it’s more like every 4-5 years. I got the Confessions soundtrack first and listened to it a lot more. So it breaks even at the end of the day.
It was either during this time or after the movie, but I got really into magazines like Tiger Beat so I could read the latest on my favorite teen idols. And obviously any news on Jesse McCartney when he was on the cusp of a solo career post-Dream Street. My clearest memory after seeing this movie- seeing a coupon for something to put highlights in my hair and I decided it was something I wanted to do. I wanted to get blonde but wound up with red, dyed a few times after that until finally I grew my hair out until it regained its original dark brown.
Between this movie and Michelle Branch being one of my top artists at the time, I’m still kinda surprised I didn’t lobby for guitar lessons also. But I also had a keyboard I barely knew how to play so clearly that wasn’t happening.
Movie time…
The movie begins on a tumultuous Thursday where both Tess and Anna Coleman are having not-so-good days.
It’s hard not to find the chaos generated by Tess's army of electronic devices hilarious in retrospect… had this been a few years later, all of these devices would’ve been replaced by a little invention called the iPhone.
Anna clearly gets the shorter end of the stick, though. "Mr. Bates is out to get me" is one of the best lines from this movie-- I'm sure a lot of teenagers felt like this about one of their teachers at some point, but in this case, it was actually true. Between him and her ex-friend Stacey, she gets in detention twice in one day.
In terms of Lindsay Lohan teen Disney movies, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is still my favorite.
But I think I watch Freaky Friday a little more frequently. Maybe once every year or so while the other, it’s more like every 4-5 years. I got the Confessions soundtrack first and listened to it a lot more. So it breaks even at the end of the day.
It was either during this time or after the movie, but I got really into magazines like Tiger Beat so I could read the latest on my favorite teen idols. And obviously any news on Jesse McCartney when he was on the cusp of a solo career post-Dream Street. My clearest memory after seeing this movie- seeing a coupon for something to put highlights in my hair and I decided it was something I wanted to do. I wanted to get blonde but wound up with red, dyed a few times after that until finally I grew my hair out until it regained its original dark brown.
Between this movie and Michelle Branch being one of my top artists at the time, I’m still kinda surprised I didn’t lobby for guitar lessons also. But I also had a keyboard I barely knew how to play so clearly that wasn’t happening.
I really liked Lindsay's look in this movie and I wanted to do it myself. That's probably as far as things went in terms of her being a role model.
Movie time…
The movie begins on a tumultuous Thursday where both Tess and Anna Coleman are having not-so-good days.
It’s hard not to find the chaos generated by Tess's army of electronic devices hilarious in retrospect… had this been a few years later, all of these devices would’ve been replaced by a little invention called the iPhone.
Anna clearly gets the shorter end of the stick, though. "Mr. Bates is out to get me" is one of the best lines from this movie-- I'm sure a lot of teenagers felt like this about one of their teachers at some point, but in this case, it was actually true. Between him and her ex-friend Stacey, she gets in detention twice in one day.
One thing I never understood… why is detention multiple times a day? I’ve never been to detention myself but I always thought it was an after school thing where your punishment was being forced to stay after. Or, you know, The Breakfast Club, where you’re forced to come in on a Saturday.
We get the impression in the first few seconds of the movie that this mom-daughter duo were close once. But in typical fashion, the teenage years change all that. I was an exception to this cliche because I often bent over backwards to not get in trouble, but I know it's a common thread in a lot of teen movies.
It takes a while to drive the message home, but this movie does a great job explaining the reasons why this once strong relationship broke down.
We get the impression in the first few seconds of the movie that this mom-daughter duo were close once. But in typical fashion, the teenage years change all that. I was an exception to this cliche because I often bent over backwards to not get in trouble, but I know it's a common thread in a lot of teen movies.
It takes a while to drive the message home, but this movie does a great job explaining the reasons why this once strong relationship broke down.
Things reach a boiling point when Tess learns that Anna wants to go to a band audition instead of her wedding's rehearsal dinner and feels that this special event is meanginless to her. Fate intervenes in the form of a fortune cookie. And two women experience a body swap overnight.
Once they piece together what happened, they decide to live each other’s lives in order to keep up the pretense everything is normal.
In her mom’s body, Anna enjoys her newfound freedom anyway she can, including a really fun makeover/shopping montage. Chaos descends in the form of that fleet of electronic devices and she has to swing by the therapists’ office to do work. Her patients seem to be none the wiser except for the one woman she gives valid advice in dealing with her teenager. She also quips the best response to an upcoming root canal spoken by anyone ("That's not fair, they're not my teeth...")
Then as Anna, Tess fails to mend fences with Stacey and succeeds in putting Mr. Bates in his place— apparently his vendetta against Anna was revenge against her mom for not going to a high school dance with him.
She also learns a lot from Anna’s friends about how she’d talked about her. How she doesn’t care about her music and hadn’t paid her any attention since Ryan came into the picture.
Once they piece together what happened, they decide to live each other’s lives in order to keep up the pretense everything is normal.
In her mom’s body, Anna enjoys her newfound freedom anyway she can, including a really fun makeover/shopping montage. Chaos descends in the form of that fleet of electronic devices and she has to swing by the therapists’ office to do work. Her patients seem to be none the wiser except for the one woman she gives valid advice in dealing with her teenager. She also quips the best response to an upcoming root canal spoken by anyone ("That's not fair, they're not my teeth...")
Then as Anna, Tess fails to mend fences with Stacey and succeeds in putting Mr. Bates in his place— apparently his vendetta against Anna was revenge against her mom for not going to a high school dance with him.
She also learns a lot from Anna’s friends about how she’d talked about her. How she doesn’t care about her music and hadn’t paid her any attention since Ryan came into the picture.
If it's possible, the second half of their day as each other gets even crazier.
Ryan surprises "Tess" with a guest appearance on a TV show to promote her new book and in her mom’s body, Anna generates so much buzz the host has her thrown out by security. God forbid a guest outshines a talk show host… I always hear rumors about those people either being egocentric, nicer on camera than they are when they’re off or some combination of both.
Ryan surprises "Tess" with a guest appearance on a TV show to promote her new book and in her mom’s body, Anna generates so much buzz the host has her thrown out by security. God forbid a guest outshines a talk show host… I always hear rumors about those people either being egocentric, nicer on camera than they are when they’re off or some combination of both.
Or people like Oprah and Ellen, my dad dislikes how they're always giving stuff away to guests but they do it through sponsers instead of using their own money.
She also attends a parent-teacher conference at her brother's school. He’d spent the better half of the movie annoying and embarrassing her. But then she learns he wrote a paper on why she was the person he admired most. We never get to see how this betters their relationship once the bodies get switched back, but in the only way she can at the time, Anna talks to him about it and you’re left feeling hopeful that things will be better between them in the future.
Back at school, the second verse of "This is why we can't have nice things" by Taylor Swift kinda sums up what happens between "Anna" and Stacey at the much hyped Honors Qualifying exam. So much for Tess's boasts that she could make it through at a day at Anna's high school without getting detention. She and Jake get some extra time together when he offers help her out, but he's just as quickly put off when he catches her doing something less than noble with the opportunity.
Back at school, the second verse of "This is why we can't have nice things" by Taylor Swift kinda sums up what happens between "Anna" and Stacey at the much hyped Honors Qualifying exam. So much for Tess's boasts that she could make it through at a day at Anna's high school without getting detention. She and Jake get some extra time together when he offers help her out, but he's just as quickly put off when he catches her doing something less than noble with the opportunity.
This one small act gives away to potentially the most insane part of this whole predicament. After the talk show debacle, Anna winds up at the coffee shop where Jake works and they hit off. This leads Jake to develop an unrequited crush on Tess and hilarity ensues.
As a quick side note- as good as the soundtrack is, they did not need to include that Chad Michael Murray sound bite of him singing a Britney Spears song… he meant well but it’s excruciatingly bad.
Finally, we have the night of the rehearsal dinner and audition. So much happens but it sometimes takes a few watches to fully grasp all of it. As a teenager, I was stoked when Anna’s friends showed up to “kidnap” her for the audition and in the end she finally gets to go. Watching this again a bit older and (hopefully) wiser, I get even more of this moment. As her mom, Anna finally gets to see how Ryan feels about her and her band and how he sees himself fitting into this new family. Up until this point, he’d made small attempts to make her warm up to him and she shut all of them down. And I guess she also assumed he didn’t care about any of her music stuff because her mom never gave her positive feedback on it. This movie is really about the two female leads at the end of the day but this was Mark Harmon’s moment to shine.
And it’s thanks to him that the audition is a rousing success. If he hadn’t told Tess to cheer on the band, they wouldn’t have pulled it off. There’s also a funny joke where Anna tells her mom to fake playing guitar like Keith… and she had to elaborate “Richards, mom!” Her improvising is probably a little closer to the lead guitarist from AC/DC but it’s good enough that everyone else at the House of Blues is none the wiser.
Then in exchange, Tess tells Anna that she has to tell Ryan to postpone the wedding. There’s a really nice heartwarming speech about the tragedy of losing their dad/husband and how Ryan made her mom happier than she’d been in a long time. So happy she was singing in the shower again, to the chagrin of everyone else.
But the speech kicks everything into motion to be set back to normal.
As a quick side note- as good as the soundtrack is, they did not need to include that Chad Michael Murray sound bite of him singing a Britney Spears song… he meant well but it’s excruciatingly bad.
Finally, we have the night of the rehearsal dinner and audition. So much happens but it sometimes takes a few watches to fully grasp all of it. As a teenager, I was stoked when Anna’s friends showed up to “kidnap” her for the audition and in the end she finally gets to go. Watching this again a bit older and (hopefully) wiser, I get even more of this moment. As her mom, Anna finally gets to see how Ryan feels about her and her band and how he sees himself fitting into this new family. Up until this point, he’d made small attempts to make her warm up to him and she shut all of them down. And I guess she also assumed he didn’t care about any of her music stuff because her mom never gave her positive feedback on it. This movie is really about the two female leads at the end of the day but this was Mark Harmon’s moment to shine.
And it’s thanks to him that the audition is a rousing success. If he hadn’t told Tess to cheer on the band, they wouldn’t have pulled it off. There’s also a funny joke where Anna tells her mom to fake playing guitar like Keith… and she had to elaborate “Richards, mom!” Her improvising is probably a little closer to the lead guitarist from AC/DC but it’s good enough that everyone else at the House of Blues is none the wiser.
Then in exchange, Tess tells Anna that she has to tell Ryan to postpone the wedding. There’s a really nice heartwarming speech about the tragedy of losing their dad/husband and how Ryan made her mom happier than she’d been in a long time. So happy she was singing in the shower again, to the chagrin of everyone else.
But the speech kicks everything into motion to be set back to normal.
The only issue I’m sure a lot of people had with it, though… there’s an earthquake after the fortune is told that only the two of them feel, yet when everything goes back to normal, everyone notices. (In "Freakier Friday," nobody notices an earthquake except the people involved at the start and end of the spell… so it’s a major continuity error, but a minor nitpick on my part).
We have the wedding, Jake is in attendance and things are looking up for him and Anna, and the younger lady from the Chinese restaurant prevents her mom from giving away another fortune cookie. This moment is so dramatic and over the top, but good for a laugh every time. It would’ve been an interesting body swap but maybe not enough for a whole movie.
Then the movie ends with another catchy Lindsay Lohan song.
We have the wedding, Jake is in attendance and things are looking up for him and Anna, and the younger lady from the Chinese restaurant prevents her mom from giving away another fortune cookie. This moment is so dramatic and over the top, but good for a laugh every time. It would’ve been an interesting body swap but maybe not enough for a whole movie.
Then the movie ends with another catchy Lindsay Lohan song.
Soundtrack discussion
“Ultimate” got as much play on Disney Radio as the title track from “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.” Both were huge staples in my teenage years and even though I don’t listen them as much as I used to, I still know (nearly) every word and have a great time when they’re on.
A lot of the soundtrack is just covers of older songs and not necessarily covers that improve on the original. “Happy together” by Simple Plan is a little too fast. It’s a good way to start the movie but I’d be fine without a full 3 minute version. I’m not really a fan of the Bowling for Soup Britney Spears Jake and Anna are raving about. The Lillix version of “what I like about you” is probably the best one. "What a wonderful world" by Joey of the Ramones isn't bad either.
The big non-cover standout for me is “Brand New Day” by Forty Feet Echo, which kinda serves as Jake’s theme song since it canvases two scenes between him and Anna-- directly before and after the body swap. It kinda reminds me of “Here Without You” by 3 doors down.
The rest are a mix of pop and punk songs by indie artists or people like Ashlee Simpson who became a little bigger later on.
A lot of the soundtrack is just covers of older songs and not necessarily covers that improve on the original. “Happy together” by Simple Plan is a little too fast. It’s a good way to start the movie but I’d be fine without a full 3 minute version. I’m not really a fan of the Bowling for Soup Britney Spears Jake and Anna are raving about. The Lillix version of “what I like about you” is probably the best one. "What a wonderful world" by Joey of the Ramones isn't bad either.
The big non-cover standout for me is “Brand New Day” by Forty Feet Echo, which kinda serves as Jake’s theme song since it canvases two scenes between him and Anna-- directly before and after the body swap. It kinda reminds me of “Here Without You” by 3 doors down.
The rest are a mix of pop and punk songs by indie artists or people like Ashlee Simpson who became a little bigger later on.
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