Freakier Friday: The Feel-Good Sequel of the Summer

With the exact right blend of nostalgia and heart, Freakier Friday is the rare sequel that improves its predecessor, and the feel-good reunion we needed.

Freakier Friday is more than your average nostalgic new entry in a beloved franchise; it’s the rare sequel that improves its predecessor, making its protagonists’ journey in the first film more meaningful.

The movie begins twenty-two years after Anna (Lindsay Lohan, of Falling for Christmas) and her mum Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis, of Halloween) switched bodies in Freaky Friday, and the two protagonists are thriving – or so it would seem. Still married to Ryan (Mark Harmon), Tess is a successful psychologist with a book tour to organize, but she’s determined to also be there for her family. Anna‘s career has also taken off, as she’s now manager to a famous popstar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan’s Ella), but she’s also nailing the single mum life, having developed enough patience to be able to put up with her surfer daughter Harper‘s (Julia Butters, of The Fabelmans) teenage tantrums.

But a meddling mum and a rebellious 15-year-old become the least of Anna’s problems when our protagonist meets a man, and everything changes. It all starts when Harper and her nemesis – a classmate named Lily (Sophia Hammons) who has just transferred from England but can’t wait to get back to London to study fashion – disrupt chemistry class, which has the principal summon both parents. And when Anna meets Lily’s dad, Eric (Manny Jacinto, of The Good Place), it’s love at first sight.

Six months later, Anna and Eric are days away from their wedding, after which they’re going to move to London with Harper and Lily. But the two girls – whose relationship hasn’t improved in the slightest – aren’t alone in not being thrilled by this plan. Though she hasn’t fully realized it yet, Tess is terrified by the thought of not being able to see Anna every day, having gotten so used to living her own life through Anna and Harper. All this tension is getting to everyone, especially Anna, who’s also dealing with a crisis at work. But when life gets complicated, the Coleman family has an unusual way of processing change; needless to say, this calls for some literal change at the worst possible moment.

If a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant was what made mother and daughter swap bodies in the first movie, here the swap takes place in a different way, and it’s definitely less exciting. The scenes leading up to that moment mainly serve to catch us up with Anna and Tess’s lives and introduce the new characters in a way that will still make us remember them when they’re not in their own bodies. We spend quite a lot of time with Anna, Tess, Harper and Lily pre-switch, in the first half of the film, and while it’s never boring, it’s also filled with exposition, and the comedy doesn’t always work. Still, the characterization is on point, and spending time with all our protagonists is rewarding despite these pacing and tonal shifts.

When our four main characters switch bodies – Harper with Anna, and Lily with Tess – is where all these issues disappear and the movie really takes off, starting with a hilarious scene that cleverly references the first film and builds on it to add one more generation to the mix. And with four characters instead of two, everything can happen. Director Nisha Ganatra (Late Night) and writers Jordan Weiss and Elyse Hollander find clever ways to continue Anna and Tess’s story in a way that feels natural and true to the characters we watched grow and evolve in the first movie. At the same time, having them be a mother and a grandmother lets us explore new sides to both protagonists, with a reversal of roles that sees them team up with each other this time around.

Of course, Harper and Lee don’t want the wedding to happen, and being in adult bodies gives them the power to really disrupt Anna’s life. When they find out about her ex, Jake (Chad Michael Murray), it doesn’t take them long to come up with a plan. Anna and Tess, on the other hand, get to relive their teenage years in Harper and Lily’s bodies, which also gives them the unique opportunity to be equals, outside of the mother/daughter – and grandmother/mother to Harper – roles in which they’ve been confined for a long time. Of course, there’s plenty of comedy in all of this, and Freakier Friday finds creative ways to reference the first film that will have you grinning from ear to ear throughout, but it also has a lot to say about family and love.

As our protagonists, Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are superb. Spending time with Anna and Tess feels like reuniting with old friends, and we could keep watching them for hours, even when they’re at their silliest and not even inhabiting their own bodies. Chad Michael Murray, too, feels like he’s truly having a blast inhabiting Jake again. It wouldn’t have been a Freaky Friday movie without him, and though his appearances are brief, they have a huge impact on the film.

Whether they are playing their own characters or the people who have taken over their bodies, Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons are always believable as Harper and Lily; when they’re being Anna and Tess, it’s easy to forget that it’s still them playing different characters, and that the body swap magic hasn’t taken place in real life too. Julia Butters is absolutely the standout here. If Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood introduced her as someone to watch and even earned her a Critics Choice Awards nomination, Freakier Friday serves as yet another showcase for Butters, and a sign of even more promising things to come for her soon.

Manny Jacinto is a flawless as Eric, the worthy successor to Chad Michael Murray’s Jake as Anna’s love interest, and a perfect prince charming to a more grown up protagonist. Jacinto fully embraces the role in both comedy and emotion, and has our attention at all times. He even embraces his inner Ken in a scene that you’ll want to replay over and over again just for how enjoyable it is to watch it.

Freakier Friday‘s story isn’t revolutionary, but neither was the first film’s. We come back to these characters because of how fun it is to inhabit their universe. Freaky Friday meant so much to an entire generation because it managed to capture a very specific moment in time, and allowed us to dream of a little magic and grow up with these characters. The sequel will speak to that same generation – and a certain song sounds even better this time around! – but it will also introduce new audiences even more characters that different viewers will be able to relate to.

Freaky Friday was the story of a mother and a daughter learning to understand and love each other, and so is the sequel; only, there are more generations at play here, making for a film that’s just as enjoyable and full of heart as the first, but that is able to communicate even more, in a surprisingly profound way. This time, the spotlight is on Anna, who doesn’t have to stay backstage anymore, in every possible way. But this story also belongs to Harper, Tess, Lily, and Eric, and, most of all, it belongs to us.

Freakier Friday will be released in US and Canadian theatres, in UK & Irish cinemas, and globally in theaters on August 8, 2025.