One Movie Later: Freakier Friday is, As Kids These Days Say, Cringe!
by James Coulter
Disney, I think you need an intervention. You haven’t been yourself lately. You used to be so cool. You made unique, original movies. But you’ve fallen into a slump. Like you’resuffering a midlife crisis.
It’s like you feel your best days are behind you, and you’re desperately trying to relive the good old days. That’s why most of your recent content has been live-action remakes, soft reboots, and sequels to decades-old movies. Like Freaky Friday.
Look! I get it. I was a teenager when Freaky Friday was released in 2003. I was the target audience for the movie. I thought it was a cool and hip take on an old classic. The movie really vibed with me and other millennials. But no one was demanding a sequel. Especially 20 years later!
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Because there’s no question about it. This movie was bad. The only real question is, “How bad?” Let’s answer that question and jump straight into the review.
Freakier Friday takes place two decades after the events of the original Freaky Friday. Anna (played by Lindsay Lohan) is now a single mother raising a teenage daughter with her mother, Tess (played by Jamie Lee Curtis). Anna is about to tie the knot with her fiancée. There’s only one problem: their children don’t get along.
Following some wacky supernatural shenanigans (thankfully not caused by Chinese stereotypes like in the old movie), Anna and Tess end up swapping bodies with Anna’s daughter, Harper, and soon-to-be step-daughter, Lily. Can the four of them break the curse in time for the wedding?
Anyone remember “Gen Z Hospital”? The SNL skit where a bunch of 30-to-40-something actors pretended to be “modern” kids? And how that skit was “cringe” because they were trying to speak in “modern” lingo? And how it was even cringier because it starred Elon Musk?
Stretch that skit out over two hours, and that’s what this movie feels like.
Freakier Friday is a prime example of a piece of media written by people 30-and-older trying to appeal “young” and “hip” with “kids these days” by misusing their language. (Or rather, what language the writers imagine people 30-and-younger use!)
Here’s a few notable offenders:
• A sign on Harper’s door that reads: “No triggering. This is my safe space.”
• Lily arguing her dad misused the word “gaslighting.”
• Tess recommending Harper and Lily braid each other’s hair in styles that aren’t “culturally-appropriative.”
• The teacher in detention telling his students to read something “in books, not on screens.”
• Lily (in Tess’s body) calling her tennis opponents “Boomers”, only for those opponents to rebuff that they’re”Gen X” (or, actually, “Elder Millennials.”)
• Anna’s assistant reading out several potential magazine feature headlines, one of which uses the word “slay”, prompting Harper (in Anna’s body) to ask “what out-of-touch adult wrote that?” (I’m asking that very question about the dialogue in this movie!)
Ugh! Screenwriters! Some free advice: you’re never going to appear “young” and “hip” with “kids these days” by trying (and failing) to use modern slang. You’re only going to come across like Steve Buscemi in 30 Rock with a backward baseball cap and skateboard, saying, “How do you do, fellow kids.”
Not going to lie: I never felt “older” watching a film since I reviewed Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie. But give that filmcredit. At least it was written specifically for young children.
I have no clue who Freakier Friday was made for. The movie feels like it was made for older audiences who grew up watching the original and younger audiences to get them interested in the original. And it feels like Freakier Friday failed in both regards.
And I don’t know what makes me feel older: watching the older women in the younger girls’ bodies saying how much they love having faster metabolisms and not suffering from fragile bones and arthritis, or the younger girls in the older women’s bodies finding out that older people wear adult diapers and dentures?
Take one scene where the younger girls in the older women’s bodies decide to speed through LA despite neither of them knowing how to drive. I know younger people are supposed to feel liberated imagining themselves as the kid characters driving, but I could only scream out in horror, “Dear Lord! They’re going to get killed or arrested!”
Actually, you know the worst part about this movie? It has a Walgreens commercial in the middle of it. No, I’m not kidding. An entire scene takes place in a Walgreens, and that scene opens with an exterior shot of the building that lasts two to three seconds. (Just so moviegoers are reminded where the characters are shopping! And where those moviegoers should go shopping after the movie!)
What else is to say about Freakier Friday? The story plays out like any other body swap story. The characters learn to empathize with the person they swapped bodies with. And Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are still decent actors even 20 years later.
Look! I know I’m getting old. But it’s not like I can’t enjoy a movie aimed at younger people. I just gave a glowing review of an animated movie about pop stars in a musical genre I know nothing about. I can still be hip with what kids these days like.
Freakier Friday, on the other hand? This movie was made for me, a millennial who watched the original movie 20 years ago. But this movie didn’t make me relive my younger days. It just reminded me I’m 16 months away from turning 40!
You want to feel nostalgic for Freaky Friday? Watch the original movie on Disney Plus.
