Freakier Friday

Anna was passionate about rock, but is now the happy manager of female rock star, Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). She’s also about to marry hot British Chef Eric (Manny Jacinto –The Good Place). Blending families includes his snobby, sarcastic daughter Lily (Sophia Hammons), conveniently the same age and they go to school together. Harper despises Lily’s conceited attitude and her preoccupation with celebrities.They can’t stand each other, but agree not wanting their parents to marry. 

Lily is still getting over losing her mother, while Harper is a total brat who sleeps late, talks back at her menacing little brother, Harry (Ryan Malgarini), back again, as is nasty teach Mr. Blake (Stephen Tobolowsky) always fun, who loves to give out detentions for no reason at all. This film plays like a series of comedy sketches with throwbacks to the original, including brief appearances by Tess’ husband Ryan (Mark Harmon).

A chance encounter with a bumbling psychic, Madame Jen (SNL’s  Vanessa Bayer), is one of the comedic bits that hits best. It leads to the body/mind transfers allowing the switch of too many cross-generation characters. To play her teen daughter, Jamie Lee has to become the snooty Brit, but she has no British accent! And the younger actors have to play Mom and Grandma. If this looks confusing on the page, it’s not much clearer on screen. Wait, what? You have to focus on who each character is, while looking at another character’s face. It worked in the original film when we covered and interviewed Lohan and Curtis while working for Disney. But sometimes in tis film, it was try-too-hard comedy.

We found some of the lines from writers Jordan Weiss Elyse Hollander and Aime Doherty problematic. They’re often stilted and Nisha Ganatra’s directing and editing bounces around too much, affecting some of the character and story development. We see Jamie Lee Curtis as therapist/author Tess recording a podcast in the opening, but there’s no mention or scene in her studio for the rest of the film. The same goes for the pickleball scene and wedding dance rehearsal where Harper (in her mother Lohan’s body) with Mom’s fiancé, Eric Tango, hip hop and do a little Dirty Dancing. These scenes are completely out of context. But there is plenty of music. One of our favorites ? “Hot to Go.” Composer Aime Doherty, Costumes by Natalie O’Brien and Makeup by Erin Ayanian glitz this film up well. 

Women in awkward situations include an encounter with Anna’s old flame from the first film. Mom and daughter try to navigate an encounter with Anna’s old flame Jake (Chad Michael Murray who looks very good), in a record store scene that goes nowhere. And the quick cut collages of travel photos replace scenes of Anna and Eric’s romance are left emotionless, without romantic sparks.

There’s an actual story of how hard it is for children in blended households learning to become family, but Director Ganatra and the writers concentrate on the frivolous instead. Why work on actual issues when a school bake sale turning into a gigantic food fight can force comedy and messy action. 

The finale where Lohan as Anna goes back on stage for rousing concert for an emotional ending follows the beats of two decades ago. Freakier Friday assumes that everyone has seen and remembers the details of the original. Every actor works hard in this film, especially Lohan and Curtis, but with too many multigenerational characters in constant chaos, you might want to wait til this one streams before you put your Freak on.

Walt Disney Pictures 1 Hour 51 Minutes PG