By 
Freakier Friday (2025)
Friday is about to get freaky … again.
Some family traditions are worth repeating — even if the spell gets a little tangled this time.
Two decades on, Disney’s body-swap comedy gets the legacy-sequel treatment, and the headline news is this: Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan show up ready to play. They’re loose, silly, and fully game, finding fresh mileage in a premise that should, by rights, feel worn. As far as comfort-food cinema goes, Freakier Friday mostly hits the spot — and when it doesn’t, Curtis and Lohan shoulder the movie back into the warm-and-fizzy lane it’s aiming for. Director Nisha Ganatra, The High Note (2020), keeps the vibe glossy and spry, steering a faithful follow-up that’s keen to make mums, daughters, and nostalgia kids grin.
The future looks … strangely familiar.
Plot-wise, we’re back with therapist Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis), her now-grown rocker-turned-exec daughter Anna (Lindsay Lohan), and Anna’s moody teen, Harper (Julia Butters). A bachelorette-party hiccup turns mystical and — whoops — this time the magic doubles, creating a four-way swap across generations. It’s a cute escalation on paper; in practice, the crisscrossing identities can be hard to track, and a few scenes play like frantic roundabouts where the jokes arrive before the logic does. You’ll still laugh, but you might need a beat to remember who’s wearing whose shoes.
Curtis is the film’s clear MVP, leaning into elastic physical comedy and big-hearted mugging without losing the maternal pulse that made her 2003 turn so endearing. There’s a fearless, “let’s go for it” gusto to everything she does. Lohan, meanwhile, feels relaxed and dialled-in — there’s an ease to her screen presence that sells the movie’s mushier beats and lets her nail the exasperated-mum slapstick without strain. The intergenerational rhythm between them remains the franchise’s secret sauce, and when the film slows down long enough to let them actually talk (or flail) as mother and daughter, it clicks.
Pyjama party? More like personality party swap.
The newbies help, too. Julia Butters, The Gray Man (2022), as Harper, gives the movie its sharpest reactions and the most honest flare-ups; she can curdle a glare or melt it in a heartbeat. Sophia Hammons brings spark as Lily, Harper’s soon-to-be stepsister and occasional adversary. Around them, the bench is stacked: Manny Jacinto breezes through as Lohan’s charming fiancé, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan pops as a pop star in mini-meltdown, and returning faces from 2003 — Mark Harmon, Christina Vidal, and yes, Chad Michael Murray — sprinkle nostalgia like fairy dust. Murray’s cameo is light but fun; the film doesn’t overplay him, but every time Jake saunters in you feel that old, easy charisma. I liked having him back.
As a comedy machine, Freakier Friday fires in fits and spurts. A junk-food binge bit lands. High-school shenanigans still juice the premise. Some workplace-swap chaos gets the crowd going. Then the gears grind as the script juggles four sets of motivations, wedding hijinks, and a handful of “wait, who’s in there again?” clarifications. The film is deliberately Disney-safe — sweet and clean with PG edges—and while that’s right for the brand, a few sequences could’ve used a sharper bite or an extra rewrite to keep the momentum humming.
The swap is weird. The plan is weirder.
Still, as a follow-up it’s admirably faithful. The movie remembers what mattered last time: empathy across generations, a parent seeing her kid clearly (and vice versa), and the simple comedic joy of watching performers flip personas. Ganatra’s staging favors clarity and pep; when the set pieces stay character-first, you feel the same “aww, we’re back” lift the original delivered. It’s not reinventing the spell book, but it respects it.
For families and fans, that’ll be enough. At a brisk 111 minutes and a snug PG, it’s easy to recommend for a weekend matinee: bright, bouncy, and occasionally very funny — especially whenever Curtis gets the spotlight or Lohan relaxes into her veteran screwball groove. If the four-way swap fuzzes the edges, the heart still lands.
3 / 5 – Good
Reviewed by Stu Cachia (S-Littner)
Freakier Friday is released through Disney Australia
