Widowed therapist Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her aspiring alt-rock grunge musician daughter Anna (Lindsay Lohan) don't always see eye to eye with Tess juggling her job and multiple household duties as well as a fast approaching wedding to her fiancé Ryan (Mark Harmon), while Anna faces pressures from school and frequent fights with her obnoxious younger brother Harry (Ryan Malgarini). Following a heated argument between the two at a Chinese restaurant over Anna's conflicting band audition with Tess' rehearsal dinner, the owner's mother (Lucille Soong) gives the two magic fortune cookies. The next morning Tess awakens in Anna's body and Anna in Tess'.
Freaky Friday is a remake of the 1976 Disney comedy of the same name based on the book of the same name by Mary Rodgers. This 2003 entry marks Disney's second time remaking the film as a TV movie remake from 1995 starring Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffmann was previously produced. The film became a sleeper hit earning $160 million against its $26 million budget and was also praised for the performances and chemistry between Curtis and Lohan. While Freaky Friday is playing with very familiar material, it just goes to show that good execution can overcome a familiar premise and in some cases elevate it above its predecessors.
While I appreciated the original Freaky Friday for the performances by Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris, I was less impressed by the screenplay that had things like the waterskiing climax, the very broad approach to humor including a lengthy cartoonish car chase, and the fact that Harris and Foster were kept separated for the entirety of the body switch so they couldn't play against each other for comic friction. This 2003 version is given a slightly more grounded take on the material as director Mark Waters who'd go on to direct Mean Girls gives the gags a lot of punch and doesn't linger on sequences too long and keeps everything moving forward. In many ways you can see Freaky Friday 2003 as something of a dry run to Mean Girls as there's similar approaches to high school satire with the targets in Freaky Friday being pretty on point especially for a Disney film. The movie also wisely gives us a brief setup by playing through an ordinary day in Tess and Anna's life so we have a contrasting point for the body swap shenanigans later in the story, and this is another massive improvement from the '76 version. The movie also has more weighty stakes as the waterskiing climax has been ditched in favor of a combination of Anna's band audition and the wedding rehearsal dinner and the plot involving Tess' fiancé Mark is very sweet and legitimately engaging on an emotional and thematic level.
Freaky Friday gives a fresh coat of paint to old material and makes its own identity while respecting the original core of the film. The 2003 film improves on the '76 original with the pacing, comedic punch, and emotional weight given more gravitas and the end result is very impressive.
Freaky Friday is a remake of the 1976 Disney comedy of the same name based on the book of the same name by Mary Rodgers. This 2003 entry marks Disney's second time remaking the film as a TV movie remake from 1995 starring Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffmann was previously produced. The film became a sleeper hit earning $160 million against its $26 million budget and was also praised for the performances and chemistry between Curtis and Lohan. While Freaky Friday is playing with very familiar material, it just goes to show that good execution can overcome a familiar premise and in some cases elevate it above its predecessors.
While I appreciated the original Freaky Friday for the performances by Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris, I was less impressed by the screenplay that had things like the waterskiing climax, the very broad approach to humor including a lengthy cartoonish car chase, and the fact that Harris and Foster were kept separated for the entirety of the body switch so they couldn't play against each other for comic friction. This 2003 version is given a slightly more grounded take on the material as director Mark Waters who'd go on to direct Mean Girls gives the gags a lot of punch and doesn't linger on sequences too long and keeps everything moving forward. In many ways you can see Freaky Friday 2003 as something of a dry run to Mean Girls as there's similar approaches to high school satire with the targets in Freaky Friday being pretty on point especially for a Disney film. The movie also wisely gives us a brief setup by playing through an ordinary day in Tess and Anna's life so we have a contrasting point for the body swap shenanigans later in the story, and this is another massive improvement from the '76 version. The movie also has more weighty stakes as the waterskiing climax has been ditched in favor of a combination of Anna's band audition and the wedding rehearsal dinner and the plot involving Tess' fiancé Mark is very sweet and legitimately engaging on an emotional and thematic level.
Freaky Friday gives a fresh coat of paint to old material and makes its own identity while respecting the original core of the film. The 2003 film improves on the '76 original with the pacing, comedic punch, and emotional weight given more gravitas and the end result is very impressive.