Freakier Friday (2025) is directed by Nisha Ganatra, featuring a screenplay by Jordan Weiss and Elyse Hollander. It stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Christina Vidal, Haley Hudson, X Mayo, Lucille Song, Rosalind Chao, Vanessa Bayer, Jordan E. Cooper, June Diane Raphael, Mary Sohn, Santina Muha, and Stephen Tobolowsky.  22 years after the events of Freaky Friday (2003), this sequel follows Anna (Lohan), now a single mother, as she struggles to raise her rebellious teenage daughter, Harper (Butters). Their already-strained relationship soon takes another hit when Anna gets engaged to her dream man, Eric Reyes (Jacinto), who also just happens to be the father of Harper’s arch nemesis, Lily (Hammons). To help the new sisters find common ground, Anna enlists the aid of her mom, Tess (Curtis), which unintentionally only makes the situation worse. This familial drama eventually boils over, once again causing Anna and Tess to switch bodies, this time with Harper and Lily. Uninterested in being siblings, the now adult-bodied teens set out to sabotage their parents’ marriage. In hot pursuit, Anna and Tess find themselves consistently thrown for a loop by the harsh realities of a world that often treats teenagers as if they’re nothing more than potential troublemakers. 

Returning to their roles after 2 decades, Curtis and Lohan rarely miss a beat. After such a long gap, it would’ve been easy for them to phone it in, but it’s clear they’re both ecstatic to return. Like the original, the film’s general vibe suggests that its stars are not only giving their best efforts but genuinely having fun at the same time. Forced to portray rival teenage girls drunk on their sudden adult freedom, the two are downright hilarious. The film’s setup allows them to go further with their performances than ever before, often creating laughs through pure, overwhelming insanity. Butters and Hammons’ characters are younger, inexperienced, and more vulnerable to the trials of adult life. Thus, they have a lot more comedic potential than more mature characters, such as Anna and Tess. However, Curtis and Lohan are the film’s main draw, so it would’ve been a shame to have them portray the two more comedically low-key protagonists. Thankfully, the intelligent body swap story angle places these younger characters center stage in a way that still allows its original stars to be the primary leads. It’s really the best of both worlds.

The film doesn’t provide many new, compelling ideas in relation to the franchise premise, but it does act as a fun vehicle for its two stars to riff off of one another. The humor itself is mostly on par with the original, the first two-thirds suggesting a similar level of quality. Unfortunately, it becomes clear that this is a lesser script during the third act’s drawn-out, unearned, and overly serious emotional climax. The emotional stakes are a lot weaker this time around, so the script spends twice as much time trying to tug at our heartstrings, which only further highlights its shortcomings. It’s twice as long and half as effective. When something about your film doesn’t work, it doesn’t make sense to highlight it. These last 30 minutes rarely contain any humor and fail to advance the characters in any interesting ways. They essentially learn the same lessons about living in someone else’s shoes, eventually hugging it out.

Overall, this is an admirable attempt at a legacy sequel. For the most part, the film treads new ground, providing goofy new comedic angles and smart continuations of the original’s most iconic beats. Unfortunately, its attempt to emulate the original’s strong emotional core mostly falls flat, resulting in a third act that just feels like an endless barrage of forced sentimentality. If you loved the original, check it out; just don’t expect it to be an improvement. That being said, Curtis once again proves that she’s only gotten better over the years, delivering one of my favorite comedic performances of the year so far. B-