Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohan are Tess and Anna Coleman, a mother and teenaged daughter who are having trouble getting along. Why is that? Tess is a successful psychiatrist, which means she is so very busy that she needs a plethora of electronic devices to plan her day. She is also engaged to a man named Ryan, who seems to be lacking in personality, but apparently makes her happy. Along with that, she has a little son named Harry whom she loves so very much she overlooks his many faults. All in all, this leaves little time for her to spend with Anna, a typical teenager who is sullen and moody; who is smart, but misunderstood by her peers and mean teacher; who is confused about her older-boy crush, who likes her back; and who's also a guitar player in a band, that has an audition on the night of Tess's wedding rehersal dinner. Tess doesn't understand Anna and doesn't take her band seriously, so she doesn't want her to go. They fight at a Chinese restaraunt. A creepy staff member overhears and brings them magic fortune cookies(in the bathroom, no less), which ... make the mother and daughter switch places(their minds...or inner souls, or whatever) and they cannot switch back until they learn to understand each other.
That hardly sounds like a masterpiece, and ...wasn't, in my opinion, which is apparently different from the opinions of a lot of critics and filmgoers, who just LOVED it. I'm not sure why. The first twenty or so minutes, pre the mother and daughter switch, border between dull(the mothers's scenes) and GRATING(particularly the "hijinks" between the daughter and rather irritating little son, and the obnoxiously loud soundtrack). The movie picks up a LITTLE bit during the switch(the daughter acting all motherly toward the son), but almost immediately plummets back down again as the mother and daughter don't act like THEMSELVES trapped in the other one's bodies, but rather like cliche's of overworked mothers and teenagers.
This is especially annoying with the "daughter in the mother's body" character, who does things like spend her mother's credit cards, utter cutesy expressions like "ew" and "dude," and act all giggly and "funloving." There is one teenage girl character in the movie whom the daughter is feuding with. If THAT girl had switched places with the mother, it might have worked. Did the writer not remember that pre- the big switch, the daughter was all whiny and antisocial and actually acted, oh, NOTHING like she does when she is in her mother's body?
That incredible plot inconsistancy is the overall worst part of the movie, which also suffers from an annoying soundtrack(did "we" need to hear two entire songs from the daughter's cheesy band?), over-rated acting(did Jamie Lee Curtis really deserve an award nomination) and a very contrived ending. It's really not great, so why was it treated as such by critics and audiences alike? I have been stuck seeing this two-and-a-half times and I am still trying to figure this out.
That hardly sounds like a masterpiece, and ...wasn't, in my opinion, which is apparently different from the opinions of a lot of critics and filmgoers, who just LOVED it. I'm not sure why. The first twenty or so minutes, pre the mother and daughter switch, border between dull(the mothers's scenes) and GRATING(particularly the "hijinks" between the daughter and rather irritating little son, and the obnoxiously loud soundtrack). The movie picks up a LITTLE bit during the switch(the daughter acting all motherly toward the son), but almost immediately plummets back down again as the mother and daughter don't act like THEMSELVES trapped in the other one's bodies, but rather like cliche's of overworked mothers and teenagers.
This is especially annoying with the "daughter in the mother's body" character, who does things like spend her mother's credit cards, utter cutesy expressions like "ew" and "dude," and act all giggly and "funloving." There is one teenage girl character in the movie whom the daughter is feuding with. If THAT girl had switched places with the mother, it might have worked. Did the writer not remember that pre- the big switch, the daughter was all whiny and antisocial and actually acted, oh, NOTHING like she does when she is in her mother's body?
That incredible plot inconsistancy is the overall worst part of the movie, which also suffers from an annoying soundtrack(did "we" need to hear two entire songs from the daughter's cheesy band?), over-rated acting(did Jamie Lee Curtis really deserve an award nomination) and a very contrived ending. It's really not great, so why was it treated as such by critics and audiences alike? I have been stuck seeing this two-and-a-half times and I am still trying to figure this out.