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I
probably would have passed on this movie if it hadn’t been for a pre-teen friend of mine,
who told me how great it was. Of course, she later admitted to liking pretty much every
movie she’d ever seen (including Spider-Man, which I
hated). But I took her advice on this one anyway. Perhaps I was just looking for an
excuse to watch it…
Freaky Friday is a remake of the 1976 movie
starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster. In the updated-for-the-new-millennium version,
Lindsay Lohan plays Anna Coleman, a teenage girl who plays in a rock band, spends plenty
of quality time in detention, and has a huge crush on a guy named Jake (Chad Michael
Murray). Jamie Lee Curtis plays Anna’s mom, Tess, an uptight psychologist who’s trying
to balance her work, her family, and her upcoming wedding.
Like most
mothers and teenage daughters, Tess and Anna agree on very little. Tess thinks Anna’s
self-centered, and Anna thinks Tess is ruining her life. One night, while the two are
fighting in a Chinese restaurant, an old woman gives them a couple of fortune cookies,
which make them switch lives. On Friday morning—the day before Tess’s wedding—they wake
up in one another’s body. Each is forced to walk in the other’s shoes (literally!) until
they can figure out a way to change back.
Freaky Friday may be a
typical teen dramady with a touching message in the end, but who cares? It’s a fun
movie—once you get used to the fact that Tess is Anna in Tess’s body and vice versa, that
is. Jamie Lee Curtis is spectacular in her role as a teenager trapped in an “old”
woman’s body—one who ditches work to go on a shopping spree, fires the caterer for the
wedding after finding out that they’re preparing halibut, and tells one of her patients
that her habit of sneaking peeks at her daughter’s diary is “gross.”
Freaky Friday is a fun family movie. Let your daughter/little
sister/niece watch it with her friends at her next slumber party—then watch it yourself
after the kids are asleep. Just don’t let her know that you liked it, too. She’ll be
devastated.
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