A few months ago, maybe when I went to see Finding Nemo, I first saw a preview for Freaky Friday. The movie looked like it would be good and I wanted to see it. I wasn’t able to go when it first opened in theaters, but I was finally able to go. I loved the movie.
Tess Coleman is a single mother raising her teenage daughter Anna and younger son Harry. Tess is a psychologist or psychiatrist. She is very busy with work and planning her wedding to Ryan, which is in two days. Anna and Tess are having trouble relating to each other. Anna has a bad day at school, getting sent to detention twice. Anna is interested in Jake, but she has bad luck in getting his attention as well. Once she was home, Anna practices with her band in the garage until Tess kills the power. Harry keeps going in Anna’s room messing with her stuff. Anna retaliates, which leads to her losing her door.
Tess, Anna, Harry, Ryan, and Tess’s dad all go to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Anna tells her mother about an opportunity her band has to be in a contest. It is the next evening, when the rehearsal dinner is. Anna wants to go to the competition, but Tess won’t let her. The two get into a horrible argument in the restaurant. The mother of the owner shows up with two fortune cookies and is very insistent about Tess and Anna taking them. They do just to get rid of her. The argument continues until Anna goes into the bathroom. She and her mother open the fortune cookies then and read the fortune. Then there is an earthquake. When they get back into the dinning room, they find out that no one else felt the quake.
The next morning, Friday, Tess and Anna wake up to discover that something very strange has happened. They switched bodies. They are both upset by this and try to figure out how to fix the problem. They decide that it must be related to the weird earthquake that only they felt the night before. They decide that they can’t tell anyone else what happened because people would think they were crazy. They would each do what the other would do until they had a chance to fix it. Tess has trouble in school and finds out that Anna is right about Mr. Bates having a grudge against her and about Stacey, her former best friend. Anna goes shopping with her mom’s credit cards and then tries to muddle through sessions with patients. They discover that it will take an act of selfless love to change them back.
Harry is very confused by the change in his mother and sister. Ryan isn’t sure what is going on either. Anna spends some time with Jake and has a great time, but he thinks she is his mother, which causes some complications. Tess is worried that they would get switched back in time for the wedding. Maddie and Peg, Anna’s friends and band mates, are upset about missing the contest.
CAST
Jamie Lee Curtis - Tess Coleman
Lindsay Lohan - Anna Coleman
Mark Harmon - Ryan
Harold Gould - Grandpa
Chad Michael Murray - Jake
Stephen Tobolowsky - Mr. Bates
Christina Vidal - Maddie
Ryan Malgarini - Harry Coleman
Haley Hudson - Peg
Julie Gonzalo - Stacey
Mark S. Waters - Director
Freaky Friday was released to theaters in August of 2003. The movie is 93 minutes long and rated PG. This is a good movie for families. I do think that girls would be more interested in seeing it than boys. Younger children probably wouldn’t be too interested in what was going on in it. The movie is based on a book by Mary Rodgers. The movie was released by Disney, making it the third very successful movie from Disney this summer after Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
This is the third version of Freaky Friday that has been made. The original version was made in 1976 with Jody Foster playing the daughter. A second version was made for television in 1995. Shelly Long played the mother in that version. I’ve never seen the original version. I remember seeing some of the version that was made for television, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did this version. I really don’t remember much about the television version, so I’m not sure how much stayed the same or was changed. I am guessing that some parts of the movie have been updated, but I’m not sure how much has been changed from the original, or from the book it was based on. The story may not be completly original since it is a remake, but I think that is ok. It is a very good movie.
I really enjoyed Freaky Friday. It was one of the better movies that I have seen this year. I thought the plot was interesting. I was never bored by what was going on. There were things that happened that I didn’t expect and there were other things that happened that were predictable. The fact that there were some things about the movie that were predictable didn’t make me like the movie less. I don’t mind predictable movies at times.
Freaky Friday had some very funny scenes in it. I thought it was really funny to see Jamie Lee Curtis acting like a teenager. It was funny when Tess and Anna realized that they had switched bodies. There were just a lot of little things throughout the movie that were funny. Sometimes the expressions on the characters faces made me laugh. There wasn’t any kind of gross out humor in the movie. I don’t remember there being any swearing in the movie. There was no nudity, but there was one scene that showed a brief glimpse of a thong that Anna was wearing - while she was in Tess’s body. Another scene showed off a navel piercing that Anna had. That was it for showing skin. I don’t think there is anything in the movie that could be offensive to anyone or that children shouldn’t see.
Tess’s wedding was the day after she and her daughter switched bodies. Some of the last-minute wedding preparations were included in the movie. Tess and Ryan really didn’t have any time alone during the movie. Anna was trying to start a relationship with Jake. There were a few kisses shown during the movie, but that was it. There were no love scenes. There was only a touch of romance in the movie from the two relationships.
Freaky Friday showed how a mother and daughter can have trouble relating and getting along at times. Tess loved her daughter, but she had been focusing more on her upcoming wedding and her work recently. She didn’t take the time to talk to Anna about some things. Anna didn’t help the situation by keeping her feelings about some things from her mother. Harry and Anna had disagreements. Harry was very good at launching sneak attacks at his sister when Tess wasn’t paying attention. Anna would retaliate and get in trouble. Tess did seem to take Harry’s side in things and blame Anna every time there was a problem between the two. Tess didn’t seem to realize that Harry was to blame at least part of the time as well. That didn’t help her relationship with Anna. Tess and Anna each realized things about the other because of their switch. That did lead to a few touching moments in the movie.
I really enjoyed the music that played during Freaky Friday. There were songs playing at many different times in the movie. Anna and a few of her friends were in a band. They played a few songs during the movie. Lindsay Lohan did sing one song that played during the credits. There were remakes of a few songs, including a new version of Baby One More Time. One of the characters did sing part of the song at one point as well. That didn’t sound the best. I enjoyed the music in the movie so much that I went out and got the soundtrack right after I saw the movie. I’ve been listening to it while working on this review.
The acting in Freaky Friday was really good. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan were amazing, especially after their characters switched bodies. The switch didn’t occur right as the movie started, so there was time to get to know the characters a little and see some of their quirks. Once the switch took place, Jamie had to start acting like a teenager and Lindsay had to become a mother. The way they played the parts after the switch was very believable. Jamie was talking and acting like a teenager and Lindsay became an adult woman with two children. Their performances really made the movie. It wouldn’t have worked as well if they hadn’t been able to so believably act like the other character for most of the movie. I think Lindsay Lohan could end up having a successful acting career. She was in the remake of The Parent Trap from a few years ago. Before that she was on Another World. Mark Harmon turned up several times as Ryan, the man that was engaged to Tess. He didn’t have a lot to do in the movie, but he did fine with his role. He really seemed to be bewildered by some of the things that were happening. The only other actor that I have seen in any other movies was Stephen Tobolowsky. He had a small role as one of Anna’s teachers.
CHARACTERS
Tess Coleman - Successful mother of two busy planning her wedding. She loves her children but seems to be a little out of touch with them, especially her daughter Anna.
Anna - Tess’s daughter. Anna is in a band. She doesn’t get along with her mother as well as she did before. She loves her mother, but feels like she is being ignored because of the wedding.
Ryan - Man engaged to Tess. He keeps trying to do things to make Anna happy and more accepting of the wedding.
Jake - Boy that Anna is interested in. He started to notice her too, and then was very confused when he felt a connection with Tess.
I really enjoyed Freaky Friday. This is a good family movie, especially for mothers and daughters.
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