I love Jamie Lee Curtis. And I loved FREAKY FRIDAY, her first film with Lindsay Lohan. So, why didn’t I love this one? Quite simply, it is too frantic to be funny. Comedy needs set up, timing, and yes, a certain seriousness to be effective, and yet all of those disciplines are lost in this rushed, loud, and overplayed exercise. Too many characters, too many cuts, too much chaos.
Nisha Ganatra (TRANSPARENT, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH) is a talented director but I suspect that she’s been encouraged to give this film a Disney Channel feel as to appeal to the pre-teen female audience that the cable station caters too. Thus, FREAKIER FRIDAY is played to the rafters, far too excessive in almost every aspect. Granted, the film may be a farce, but farce still needs control.
But when everything is pitched at a 10 energy-wise, and the noise level follows, good things get lost in the mix. That’s what happens to certain inspired performances, like that of Jamie Lee Curtis here. The Oscar-winner has always had superb comic instincts but Ganatra and editor Eleanor Infante shove in too much chaos around her, as well as cut away from her sublime bits far too often, making the schtick she’s creating feel almost abandoned. The film never slows down enough to appreciate what she or the other talented members in the cast are trying to create with their performances.
The main reason for such flaws though is a plot that is simply so over-stuffed, the players didn’t stand a chance. There are four main female characters now, not to mention a half dozen other important players. And with the core four, they all are involved with body switching. It was easier in 2003’s FREAKY FRIDAY where the focus was on the one body swap between tense mom Tess (Curtis) and rebel teen daughter Anna (Lohan). There, the humor came through loud and clear as the two main characters learned to appreciate the other by walking in the other’s shoes for a few days. Here, screenwriters Jordan Weiss and Elyse Hollander have multiplied that conceited exponentially with Anna’s teen daughter Harper (Julia Butters) trading places with her, while Tess exchange bodies with Lily (Sophia Hammons), Harper’s teen rival.
The obvious switching should have seen Tess and Anna trading places and realizing how 23 years has created even more differences in their experiences. And with the rival teens, they’d learn to empathize with those they thought were sworn enemies. Instead, the mix-up is hard to get ahold of, especially when the set-pieces don’t always set up differences that age would determine. And keeping track of four leads playing variations on the others becomes tasking. Some of it is very funny, but it’s a lot to process from frenetic set-piece to set-piece.
The chaos is further compounded by the B story showcasing Anna’s pending nuptials to Lily’s father Eric (Manny Jacinto). Their wedding is in less than week and music promotor Anna also has a big concert tour with teen pop star Ella, played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan to launch as well in the same time frame.
Los Angeles gets satirized a lot here and some of it lands while other gags will be lost on anyone east of California. The Pacific Coast parody is most successful in pimping New Age mysticism as Vanessa Bayer wrings laughs out of almost every line she has playing a ditzy fortune teller. Her Madame Jen may be a well-meaning mystic, but times are tough and she has to work at a Starbucks to help make ends meet. That’s funny stuff and Bayer, along with Curtis, are the best things going for this sequel.
But even as good as a pro like Curtis is throughout, the film misses opportunities to give her even more to play. None of Tess’s dialogue, after she exchanges bodies with the British Lily, sounds particularly posh. Having others trying to figure out Tess’s new ways to describe things using UK euphemisms would give the banter some genuine edge, but such layers are missing by and large. This sequel also makes the exact same mistake that the recent horror movie reboot I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER did by assuming we remember all the characters and bits that were introduced decades ago. We don’t and rewatching the original IP should not be required viewing for anyone coming to a sequel.
Granted, I applaud Disney for even trying to do a proper cinematic sequel so late in the game, especially knowing how film comedies are few and far in between these days, but effort doesn’t equal success. Even Lohan in her big comeback role isn’t given enough comedy to play to truly shine. At times, it feels like she’s fighting everything around her just to register. She deserves better. So does Curtis. So does the audience.
