Freaky Friday (2003)

Because it’s me, I have to spend the first few paragraphs setting the scene…

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.

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army of electronic devices hilarious in retrospect… had this been a few years later, all of these devices would’ve been replaced by a little invention called the iPhone.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. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

Theatrical Review: Freakier Friday

Preamble

There’s been a recent trend of sequels to movies that came out decades after their predecessors. Maverick, the long awaited sequel to Top Gun, was the start of it and we can all be certain there’ll be dozens of similar instances to come. That is until Hollywood gets back to putting out more original stories that hadn’t been already done a thousand times. Although many of the trailers preceding this movie have given me some much needed reassurance more original stories will be on the way.
https://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2025/08/freakier-friday-trailers.html (I did something different and gave the trailer their own post... not sure if I'll continue to do so but this time it felt like the right call)
Also I am aware horror movies have been navigating similar gaps between sequels as well. I’m not a fan of horror movies so forgive me for not counting those.

Personal Connection

So… I’m officially that age where I can say how excited I am for a sequel to a movie i saw in theaters in high school. The original Jamie Lee Curtis/Lindsay Lohan Freaky Friday came out in the summer of 2003 when I was coming off my first year of high school (in Neshaminy High School, we had grades 10-12 so I’d just finished 10th grade). I enjoyed the Parent Trap remake with Lindsay Lohan so of course I wanted to see this movie too.
It was a blast and I still come back to it on DVD at least once a year.

Also in case anyone is wondering, I did see the original versions of Parent Trap and Freaky Friday. I wasn’t a fan of either one. Especially not the original freaky Friday with Jodie Foster… it was nothing like the Lindsay Lohan version. In fact, we only follow the one character and don’t know the other was switched until the very end when she reveals “oh I was switched the whole time, I just didn’t tell anyone”

As for this sequel, of course I was thrilled when it was announced but that didn’t mean I didn’t have my reservations. I was concerned in some way this movie would take away from its predecessor… or it would ride so much on its coattails that it wouldn’t have its own identity. I had a little more faith this time around because I’m sure the nostalgia would carry me some of the way. Plus, Jamie Lee Curtis, who has enough control of her career and understanding of herself as a veteran actress… the fact she lobbied for this sequel and got it made speaks volumes. I mean, she wouldn’t stand by something like this unless it was good, right?

Two Different Rating Systems

In terms of rating or reviewing this movie, you could say it has two ways to score. How I’d rate it as a movie and how I’d rate it as a sequel. Especially a sequel to a movie that’s 22 years old.

As a movie… it’s good. I actually really liked the first act before the switch happens and it had a decent conclusion but the middle was a very chaotic jumbled mess. At times, it was difficult for me to keep these characters straight despite knowing who they were from the previous film and it was hard at times to catch my breath. But in the moments it did slow down and the actresses got to breathe and do their thing, it was really good.
I suppose if I was being objective, I’d give it maybe a B to a B- taking points away for the two or three jokes that overstayed their welcome. There wasn’t as much cringey stuff as I expected considering we have different generations and nowadays when generations are in a room together, they harp on that fact way too much. Actually, most of the comments from the gen Z characters were about how adults really don’t get it.

As for rating this movie as a Freaky Friday fan, I’d say my satisfaction rating is at 90%. So I’d give it an A- essentially.
I didn’t read a lot of reviews for Maverick, but I’m sure the criticism that it leaned too much on the nostalgia factor.
For Freakier Friday, I think it might have struck the perfect balance between throwbacks to its predecessor and telling its own story. Well, perfect might be overselling it but I was very happy with it.
The movie brought nearly all of the main characters from the original and their chemistry still holds up really well all these years later. We also added Anna’s new finance and her daughter Harper and his daughter Lilly and they more than held their own against the others. 

The only low points in that regard were Tess’s husband Ryan almost blending into the background (I barely noticed Mark Harmon was in this movie but that’s likely due to Jamie Lee Curtis stealing nearly every scene she was in) and the unpleasant return of Elton Bates (Anna's teacher who failed her purposely until Tess sets him straight during her day as Anna). Although it should at least be some consultation that he’d been demoted to detention babysitter and he was equally unpleasant to everyone.
What is it with Stephen Tobolowsky always playing unpleasant teachers with some unearned sense of entitlement? He’s literally the same character in everything I’d seen him in.
We also have a brief cameo from Anna’s brother Harry at a rehearsal dinner. The only character who doesn't make a reappearance is the grandfather (Harold Gould passed away in 2010) and Tess's "regular" patient Evan (Willie Garson passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2021). Evan was such a nervous wreck, it wouldn't have surprised me if his character arc ended tragically, but that might've made the movie too heavy.

Family and Casting dynamics

Going off the trailers, I knew there’d be four people switching bodies but I had no idea how it was going to break down, who would be who, etc. I also had no idea who the 4th girl in the freak-out scene was. But in my defense, I did go into this blind and wanting to be surprised and trusting everything would work out. And my faith was rewarded, which doesn’t happen often.

Who Harper’s dad is, that’s never revealed and part of me is kinda disappointed in that. One because it wasn’t Jake and he was only the typical high school boyfriend that just stays in high school. And two- I’m curious about the story. Was it a one night stand or was the guy even less responsible than Anna and she decided to put her music career out to pasture to be there for her?
But I like the updated dynamic between Tess and Anna where they coparent Harper. In fact the dynamic is so good the question lingered… ok, why is this switch happening again? As it turns out, not only is Anna now the one getting married but there’s the addition of another daughter into the family. And Lily happens to be a girl in school Harper doesn’t get along with. Their parents meet in the principal’s office after the duo causes a lab accident in science. And quickly fall in love.
Yeah, I didn’t see that coming but after seeing how cute they were together, I was all for it. The bulk of the conflict comes down to living arrangements. Lily wants to go back to England and Harper wants to stay in LA. Especially since her grandparents live nearby and surfing is her thing.
In addition to her therapy career, Tess does a podcast and plays pickleball with Ryan.
Anna’s old band Pink Slip has since made decent progress since their garage phase. Since becoming a mom, she now works at a music studio and manages upcoming pop star Ella, which proves a bit more of a challenge after Ella’s boyfriend breaks up with her in a very public way. She also still writes songs in her free time but it’s mostly taken a backseat between her job and parenting.

For a more politically correct twist, the switch doesn’t happen through “Asian voodoo” (we do get a quick cameo from that mom-daughter team who now have this big food empire). Instead it’s a psychic played by SNL alum Vanessa Bayer- someone else who plays the same character in every role- but this role definitely gave her plenty of freedom to be as weird as possible.
The switch navigates its way across the generation gap- the coparents switching places with the two girls.
The girls interpret the fortune they receive as a reverse-parent trap situation, where they work towards breaking up their parents’ engagement.
At one point, they track down Jake on Facebook, commenting how it’s how old people find each other. (Omg- I got on Facebook when I started college. Old?!)
He owns a record store and yeah, Chad Michael Murray is still as hot as he was back in the day. What’s funny is seeing him still having a soft spot for Tess despite the age gap and her being married. There’s a bunch of funny jokes here but the top of it is "Lily" looking for something “vintage… like Coldplay”.
Omg, still no respect… and for me, I always flip out when music I listened to when I was a teenager 20 years ago is now concerned “old”. My version of old is the Beatles and Elvis. But I also own 5 Beatles albums so I love me some vintage as well.
Sometime during their scenes, they give Ella a much needed pick-me-up via a cheesy fashion montage.

Meanwhile Anna and Tess, once they spring themselves out of detention… most of their shenanigans are rolling around town on motor scooters and consuming vast amounts of junk food while their metabolisms are still super high. All while “Spice Up Your Life” plays in the background. I think that was probably my favorite part of those sequences, the music.

I own the soundtrack from 2003 movie because it had some great songs but mostly because I had to own all of Lindsay Lohan’s stuff.
And I just have to say how much I loved her being back for this movie and lighting up the big screen. I’ve wanted this comeback for a long time and hopefully there’ll be more… especially if they’re decent quality and not exclusive to Netflix. Cuz I don’t have Netflix…

Having this switch happen four ways has its dodgy and chaotic moments for sure. But it also allows for extra opportunities for characters to bond and get to know each other more. This is done especially well when Anna’s fiancé Eric is part of these heart-to-hearts. I cannot overstate how great these sentimental character interactions are. When everything just slows down and they’re able to be candid with each other.
Part of me also wondered a bit whether everyone would switch back at the same time or there’d be two sequences for when all of the characters resolve their differences. 

It could've gone either way, but this is a 2 hour movie. However, unlike some movies that run too long these days, I felt like the story merited it being longer than the original 90+ minute movie.

Conclusion

The final major scene of the movie takes place at Ella’s concert. I don’t want to give everything away - although some YouTube thumbnail is sure to do that for me- but it wasn’t just the biggest ode this movie made to its predecessor, it gave me the big thing that was missing from that movie.
I swear if there weren’t other people in the theater (maybe 5-6 other people), I would’ve stood up cheering because the movie did this.

Just as a final comment overall, the movie wasn’t perfect nor will it win any awards. At the end of the day, that doesn’t matter. I got a little more out of this than I expected, sometimes a lot more. I just had a lot of fun with this movie and I’m really happy I went out to see it.
You can bet I’ll get it on DVD at my first opportunity. I’ll still go to the 2003 movie more but I’ll probably watch this a bunch as well.