Freakier Friday revisits many of the same themes of parent/teen conflict and understanding found in the 2003 film. And, just like that one, we get plenty of body-swap jokes, a bit of bathroom humor and a pinch of profanity in a story that otherwise majors on some really nice family lessons.
A little more than 20 years ago, something incredible happened to Anna Coleman and her mom, Tess: On one freaky Friday, they swapped bodies.
Anna—at the time a rebellious, teenage, wannabe rockstar—was convinced that Tess was a “fun-sucker” who was “ruining her life.” Tess, for her part, was a noted psychiatrist who had just written a bestselling book about psychology. But when it came to understanding the teenage psyche, she was just as lost as any other parent.
Well, bing, bang, boom, the mother-daughter duo swapped bodies, courtesy of some fortune-cookie voodoo. And while I won’t break down the entire plot of Freaky Friday, suffice it to say that Anna and Tess went from “mother-daughter battling” to “mother-daughter appreciation,” as Bob Waliszewski wrote at the time for Plugged In.
Now it’s happening again.
Anna, now mother to teenager Harper, is on the verge of matrimony to Eric, who has a teenage daughter of his own: Lily.
Harper and Lily couldn’t be more displeased that their parents are getting married. The teen girls absolutely loathe each other—as evidenced by the fact that they’ve received multiple suspensions and detentions for their in-school fights.
Anna is doing her best to understand Harper, to ease the teenager into the idea that they’ll no longer be a single-parent household, that Harper will be sister to a girl she hates and that they’ll probably be uprooting their family to move to Eric’s home in London.
Tess tries to help Eric navigate his struggles with Lily based on her own experience with Anna. You see, all those years ago, her strife with Anna was rooted in the fact that Anna hadn’t quite gotten over her dad’s death yet, which was why she wasn’t OK with Tess remarrying. And Eric’s going through something similar with Lily now, since he lost his own wife just a couple of years ago.
Of course, Tess is hung up on her own doubts, too. She doesn’t think Anna and Harper should move away at all: She thinks Eric and Lily should stay in California instead. And admittedly, she’s grown a bit out of touch with Anna since their body switcheroo all those years ago.
But you know what? Nothing really says understanding quite like walking in each other’s shoes … literally. Before these ladies know it, Tess is in Lily’s body, Harper is in Anna’s, Lily takes over Tess’ body and Anna gets stuck in Harper’s.
It’ll be a freakier Friday, indeed.
If you saw 2003’s Freaky Friday, or even the original Freaky Friday from 1976, then you’ve got a pretty good idea of what sort of positive elements to expect:
Mother and daughter (and grandmother and stepdaughter) all realize that their presumptions about each other are wrong. And as a result of this new understanding, the three generations of women bond and learn to appreciate each other.
It’s actually quite touching just how many positive messages can be found in this film—more, I think, than even the first film conveyed. Harper realizes just how much her mom loves her. After learning about Anna’s struggle with grief after her dad passed, Lily learns how to process her own grief and to accept her stepmom. Anna and Tess once again discover how to communicate their feelings to each other, even though they have different ideas about parenting. Even Lily and Harper find some common ground.
Despite a lot of conflict here, characters eventually demonstrate their willingness to sacrifice what they want for the sake of others.
We’re not really given much information about the magic behind the body swaps here. In the original film, Anna and Tess switched places after opening a fortune cookie. And it’s more or less suggested that Chinese voodoo was practiced.
So when it happens again, the gals immediately seek help from their friend, Pei-Pei, since she and her mother were behind the original switcheroo. Unfortunately, Pei-Pei had nothing to do with it this time. Rather, it was a fortune teller called Madame Jen.
Truth be told, Madame Jen doesn’t really seem to understand what she’s done—or at least, she pretends she doesn’t. She goes into a sort of trance and starts chanting, “Change the hearts you know are wrong to reach the place where you belong,” in a deep voice. After it’s over, she seems shocked that her voice could sound so creepy. And her advice is little better than, “Figure it out.”
After receiving their fortunes from Madame Jen, there’s an earthquake that only Tess, Anna, Harper and Lily can feel. Tess and Anna are familiar with the sensation—it’s the same thing that happened last Freaky Friday. However, they convince themselves it’s nothing and continue their evening. But as the four women sleep that night, the swap occurs. And images flashing across the screen during that scene make it seem very trippy and psychedelic.
Throughout the film, Anna takes “centering breaths” to calm herself down. We hear several references to reiki, a Japanese method of reducing stress that is also linked to “healing energy.”
When the gals all swap bodies, there’s a lot of personal grabbing of chests and rears that occurs. It’s meant to be humorous, since women’s bodies naturally change as they age. And while it’s not as prominent as 2003’s Freaky Friday, that behavior is still present and depicted as comedy.
The group runs into brief hiccups with both Anna and Tess’ relationships. For the most part, they simply try to avoid Eric and Ryan while the teens are stuck in the adults’ bodies. But they also tell Eric that it’s bad luck to kiss or even hug his bride before the wedding. He’s confused, but he ultimately acquiesces.
Lily, who loves fashion, decides to dress Tess up in several cleavage-baring outfits when she takes over Tess’ body. There are a few other outfits bearing cleavage and exposing bellies. Harper (as Anna) repeatedly pulls up a strapless dress that keeps slipping.
After hearing a song that Anna wrote about love, Harper (incorrectly) assumes it was written for Jake. So, in an attempt to break up the wedding, she (in Anna’s body) goes to Jake’s record shop and flirts with him, flipping her hair and posing in a manner that she thinks is provocative (it’s actually just silly, since she doesn’t really know how to flirt).
When Anna and Tess swapped bodies all those years ago, Jake sort of fell for Tess, not realizing that it was actually Anna inside Tess’ body. That crush has stood the test of time. He asks Tess (currently inhabited by Lily) if she’s still married (she is) and if her husband is still alive (he is). Lily has no interest in Jake, but she uses his interest in Tess later as a ploy to mess up her dad’s wedding. And in the end, Jake winds up dating a woman who looks suspiciously like Tess a la 2003’s Freaky Friday.
Anna and Eric kiss. Pictures showcase their dating history, and we hear they got engaged after knowing each other six months. Lily says her knowledge of love comes from watching 500 hours of Love Island. Music by Britney Spears (a callback to the first movie) plays in one scene.
Anna manages the career of a young singer named Ella. Ella has a complete meltdown when her boyfriend (another young singer) breaks up with her. He immediately starts dating someone new, releases a dis track about Ella then unfollows Ella on social media, ensuring the entire world knows that she was dumped.
There are no obvious LGBT characters, but during a scene at Harper and Lily’s high school, someone prominently waves a Pride flag.
A teenage girl lies about having a boyfriend. A dance instructor says the tango is all about pelvic movement. Some characters perform a version of the iconic dance from 1987’s Dirty Dancing.
We’re never told how Anna conceived Harper, only that she “chose to become a single parent.”
Lily and Harper entertain the idea that perhaps they could switch back if they hit their bodies together hard enough (much like Tess and Anna believed in the first film). Thus, they run and collide with each other at full speed. All they accomplish is a headache.
When Anna and Eric first meet, they literally run into each other in the hallway at Harper and Lily’s school, knocking items out of each other’s hands. Ryan hits his head on the hood of his car when Tess honks the horn. Harper (as Anna) accidentally runs into a mirror head-on. Lily (as Tess) faints a few times right after realizing she’s stuck in Tess’ body.
Anna and Tess (in Harper and Lily’s bodies) are amazed to come out injury-free after crashing scooters. Meanwhile, Harper and Lily (in Anna and Tess’ bodies) struggle with the bodily effects of old age, such as not being able to stand without their knees cracking.
Lily and Harper accidentally blow up their school’s chemistry lab after mixing ingredients without paying attention. (Nobody is hurt.) Several months later, they start a food fight. A few kids are pushed and shoved, but nobody gets hurt there, either. However, the principal asks someone to call an ambulance after one person shoves a key lime pie into her face, since she’s allergic to it. (We later hear she has fully recovered.)
Characters drive recklessly.
We hear single uses of “a–” and “p-ss.” God’s name is misused a handful of times. There are several instances of the British expletive “bloody.” Mild interjections include “shoot,” “freaking” and “dang.” Insults are also hurled, namely “dipstick,” “twit” and “idiot.”
A few would-be profanities are cut short: Someone begins to say, “Mother—”; Elsewhere, someone says, “What the …”
Adults drink alcoholic beverages throughout the film. After the body swap, Tess and Anna, inside of Lily and Harper’s bodies, drink wine. They try to drink elsewhere but are stopped by nearby adults. Meanwhile, Lily and Harper, inhabiting Tess and Anna’s bodies, gleefully imbibe, though not to excess.
Harper and Lily initially believe that they must stop their parents’ wedding to switch back to their own bodies. As such, they act very selfishly throughout the film, though their actions are reconciled by the film’s end.
But their bad behavior didn’t start there. The teen girls had been in open rebellion against their parents long before the body swap occurred. They broke rules both at school and at home. They were disrespectful to their parents. And their personal disagreements often played out at school, resulting in a blown up chem lab and a schoolwide food fight—for which they rightly received detentions and in-school suspensions.
Anna has adopted a very different parenting style from Tess. For instance, rather than physically yank Harper out of bed in the morning (which is what Tess did with Anna), Anna calmly knocks on Harper’s door in the morning giving her a 30-minute warning, 20 minutes, 10 minutes … until finally, Anna barges in only to realize that Harper isn’t even home—she’s out surfing.
Of course, that causes Anna quite a bit of stress. And unfortunately, Tess only adds to that stress by trying to offer advice on parenting, forgetting that her own methods weren’t any more effective.
Each woman, while in the body of another, embarrasses the woman they are portraying at some point, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes on purpose. Most notably, Lily cuts and dyes Tess’ hair. Later, she applies a lip plumper to Tess’ thin mouth, which, while Lily is insistent that it looks better, humiliates Tess.
On that note, Lily can be quite cruel about Tess’ older body. Her initial reaction, “I’m practically decomposing,” is very much in line with Anna’s comments in Freaky Friday. This commentary is endearingly and humorously portrayed by actress Jamie Lee Curtis (who is 66 years old herself), but I could certainly see how some folks may not appreciate it as much as others.
And there’s a bit of bathroom humor as the teenagers realize that Anna and Tess’s bodies have very different needs from their own. Lily (as Tess) is shocked by how often she needs to use the bathroom. And she’s likewise horrified by products offered in the elderly section of a pharmacy, including adult diapers and enemas.
Obviously, many lies are told throughout the movie to prevent anyone from discovering the body swap.
Harper has a sign on her bedroom door that says, “No triggering,” and “Please respect my safe space.” There are some jokes about gaslighting, cultural appropriation and menstruation. Tess (as Lily) gets Harper and Lily’s schoolmates into more trouble by disrespecting a teacher in detention.
When Freaky Friday came out in 2003, I was the target audience. As a rebellious tween with some definite leanings toward wannabe rockstar, I absolutely adored Anna. I wanted to be her. And I’d like to think that I learned some nice lessons about mother-daughter relationships from that film, too.
So it’s safe to say that as a thirtysomething adult woman with a husband and career, I still fit the bill for Freakier Friday’s target audience. No, I don’t have a teenage daughter, but there’s still a lot of mother-daughter stuff to relate to here. I could absolutely watch this with my mom (who is about the same age as Tess) and bond with her over this film’s funnier moments. And if I had a teenage daughter, I’d probably really enjoy sharing this film with her.
Because this film is genuinely funny and warm. It hits those notes of nostalgia that many adult members of the audience will be yearning for while still offering just enough Gen Z/Gen Alpha references to keep teens and tweens engaged, too.
Does the film have issues? Sure. Much like the first installment, we’re dealing with some weird spirituality with the whole body-swap debacle. There’s a lot of body humor, too, which while totally relatable, definitely nudges the maturity rating up. And there’s a bit of mild language.
But moms (and perhaps dads), if you’re willing to sit with your daughter through this film, I think it could act as a great catalyst for conversation. We don’t get the chance to do body swaps in real life, but what might you learn from each other if you could? How would you handle a day in your daughter’s life at her high school? Would you thrive? Or would you crumble beneath peer pressure and teacher expectations? How would she cope if she had to do your job, pay your bills or even just experience your older body struggles for just one day? Would she survive? Or would she be retreating beneath a heating pad and compression socks?
Freakier Friday revamps the “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” adage for a new generation. However, I think it also successfully keeps the lesson fresh for the generations who came before. And if you’ve just skipped to the conclusion for our bottom line, be sure to read the full review to make sure there are no content concerns that could make this a nonstarter. But for those who are prepared to give this a go, I think it will deepen many a mother-daughter relationship.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
