Nisha Ganatra Archives

Review: ‘Freakier Friday’ starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto and Mark Harmon

August 5, 2025

by Carla Hay

Julia Butters, Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis and Sophia Hammons in “Freakier Friday” (Photo by Glen Wilson/Disney Enterprises, Inc.)

Directed by Nisha Ganatra

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Los Angeles area, the comedy film “Freakier Friday” (a sequel to the 2003 film “Freaky Friday,” which was based on the 1972 young adult novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Music manager Anna Coleman and her psychotherapist mother Tess Coleman find themselves in another body swap situation— this time, with two teenage girls: Anna’s daughter Harper and Harper’s snobbish school enemy Lily Reyes, who despise each other but are about to become stepsisters because Anna is marrying Lily’s widower father Eric.

Culture Audience: “Freakier Friday” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the 2003 “Freaky Friday” movie, and “body swap” comedies that are about the ups and downs of families and friendships.

Manny Jacinto and Lindsay Lohan in “Freakier Friday” (Photo by Glen Wilson/Disney Enterprises, Inc.)

When a movie sequel arrives more than 20 years after its predecessor, it can either imitate the predecessor or forge ahead with an entirely new story. “Freakier Friday” does both. Some of this comedy sequel trips over its own awkward tangled web, but “Freakier Friday” finds its stride in the movie’s second half. “Freakier Friday” is best appreciated by people who’ve seen 2003’s “Freaky Friday.”

Directed by Nisha Ganatra and written by Jordan Weiss, “Freakier Friday” has many of the same characters who were in 2003’s “Freaky Friday.” The original “Freaky Friday” story (about a mother and her teenage daughter whose bodies are switched on a freaky Friday) was a young adult novel written by Mary Rodgers and published in 1972. The book’s first movie adaptation was 1976’s “Freaky Friday,” starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster as the mother and daughter.

Since then, there have been different versions of the “Freaky Friday” story with the same title: a 1995 ABC TV-movie, starring Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffmann; a 2016 to 2017 regional stage musical, starring Emma Hunton and Heidi Blickenstaff; and a 2018 Disney Channel TV-movie, starring Cozi Zuehlsdorff and Blickenstaff, which was a filmed version of the stage musical. Other movies have used the “Freaky Friday” concept, but with different titles and main characters who were not a mother and a daughter.

In 2003’s “Freaky Friday” (which takes place in the Los Angeles area), psychotherapist Tess Coleman (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) and her 15-year-old daughter Anna Coleman (played by Lindsay Lohan) do not get along with each other. Anna is a slightly rebellious, wannabe rock star who plays lead guitar in a teenage band called Pink Slip. Tess is an intellectual who likes her life to be orderly and well-planned.

Most of the friction in “Freaky Friday” comes from Anna and Tess expecting each other to live their lives in a certain way. Anna doesn’t want her widowed mother Tess to marry Tess’ fiancé Ryan (played by Mark Harmon), a good man who has no children. Meanwhile, Tess disapproves of Anna’s romantic interest in motorcycle-riding schoolmate Jake (played by Chad Michael Murray), who’s slightly older than Anna.

Tess is afraid that Jake will break Anna’s heart. Anna is afraid that Tess will love Ryan more than Anna’s deceased father. Tess and Anna each think that each other’s lives are easier than their own lives. Anna also has less-serious conflicts with her younger brother Harry Coleman (played by Ryan Malgarini), an adolescent brat who irritates Anna, but he secretly admires her and does things to get attention from her.

A visit to Pei Pei’s Chinese restaurant changes the lives of Tess and Anna when the restaurant manager Pei-Pei (played by Rosalind Chao) and Pei-Pei’s unnamed mother (played by Lucille Soong) overhear Tess and Anna arguing. Tess and Anna open a fortune cookie given to to them by Pei-Pei’s mother, and an earthquake happens that only Tess and Anna can feel.

The next morning, Tess and Anna wake up and find out that their bodies have been switched, just a few days before Tess’ wedding to Ryan and about two days before Anna has an important audition with Pink Slip. Tess and Anna are told by Pei-Pei’s mother that the only way their bodies can be switched back is if Tess and Anna do something out of selfless love.

All of this information is important to know before seeing “Freakier Friday” because the body swap comedy is even more complicated in “Freakier Friday” than in “Freaky Friday.” It’s explained in the beginning of “Freakier Friday” that Tess and Anna (who live near each other in Los Angeles) now have a better relationship than they did when Anna was a teenager. They still argue with each other, but their conflicts aren’t serious enough to cause an estrangement.

Anna is now a single mother to a 14-year-old daughter named Harper (played by Julia Butters), who is going through the same rebellious and teenage argumentative stage of life that Anna went through with Tess. Harper’s biological father is not seen or mentioned in “Freakier Friday,” but Tess says in a voiceover that Anna chose to be a single parent. Anna now uses a lot of her mother’s “Zen” techniques to calm down during conflicts. The worst things that Anna and Tess argue about (as shown in the beginning of “Freakier Friday”) are who is going to drive Harper to school.

Tess is still married to Ryan, who appears to be retired. Tess hosts a podcast called Rebelling With Respect. Anna quit Pink Slip years ago when she became a single parent, but she secretly still writes and records songs. Anna is now the manager of a pop star named Ella (played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who is signed to Capitol Records.

In the first third of the movie, there’s a clumsy and uninteresting subplot about Anna having to prevent Ella fromhaving a debilitating meltdown because Ella’s music star ex-boyfriend Trevor (who is never seen or heard in the movie) released a song about their breakup called “Better Than the Last One.” This subplot is ultimately a waste of time. Almost every scene with Ella didn’t need to be in the movie.

Harper is a lot like Anna was in high school: a somewhat disheveled teen who loves music but who doesn’t really fit in with any of the cliques in the school. Harper is having a miserable time in school because she’s stuck being the lab partner of a British snob named Lily Reyes (played by Sophia Hammons), a trendy social media influencer who does things such as brag about going to fashion shows and interacting with Anna Wintour.

Lily’s widowed father Eric Reyes (played by Manny Jacinto) is a successful restaurateur who owns an upscale eatery named Lily’s. Eric and Lily relocated from London to Los Angeles after the death of his wife/Lily’s mother. Lily makes it known to anyone she meets that she prefers living in London, which she thinks is a more “cultured” city than Los Angeles.

During the school’s annual bake sale, Lily and Harper get into an argument and instigate a massive food fight that involves several students. They both get detention as punishment. And when Anna and Eric both show up at the school to meet with Principal Waldman (played by X Mayo), there’s an instant attraction between Anna and Eric. The inevitable happens: Anna and Eric begin dating each other.

The movie shows a montage of the courtship of Anna and Eric. And six months later, Anna and Eric are engaged to be married and plan to move to London with their daughters. This engagement obviously horrifies Harper and Lily, who agree on one thing: They both want to stop this marriage from happening. Meanwhile, Tess approves of Eric but she doesn’t want Anna and Harper to move far away from her.

The “body swap” begins after something that happens at Anna’s bachelorette party at a nightclub. This review won’t go into all the details, but it involves a psychic named Madame Jen (played by Vanessa Bayer), who was hired to be entertainment for the party in a side room. The movie pokes fun at gig economy workers by making Madame Jen someone who has several different jobs that she tries to promote at the same time.

Tess and Anna see Madame Jen for fun but quickly leave when they sense another body switch could happen to them again. And then, Harper and Lily go to Madame Jen to get a psychic reading on how to end Anna and Eric’s relationship. A familiar earthquake happens.

The next morning, there’s a quadruple body switch: Tess and Lily now have each other’s bodies, while Anna and Harper now have each other’s bodies. Although “Freaky Friday” was originally about the comedy of a mother and a daughter switching bodies, the best and funniest aspects of “Freakier Friday” have to do with the body swap between Tess and Lily, who aren’t related to each other. Some viewers won’t like this unique aspect of “Freakier Friday” but others will embrace it because it’s such a unique departure from the original story.

Even for people who saw 2003’s “Freaky Friday,” “Freakier Friday” is a lot to asborb, because of how much “Freakier Friday” wants to cram in the body swap story of four people (who all have very opinionated personalities), in addition to catering to nostalgia while also trying to be relevant to the 2020s time period in which this movie was released. It’s a juggling act that doesn’t always work well, particularly in some slapstick comedy scenes. The movie’s best comedy is in verbal joking, not the physical stunts.

“Freakier Friday” makes a lot of cutting commentary about generation gaps and aging. In one scene, Facebook is called a “database for old people,” and Coldplay is described as a band for old people. Tess, who believes in aging naturally, is mortified when she finds out what Lily (in Tess’ body) does to make Tess’ lips look younger. Not as funny is an unnecessary scene where Tess (inhabited by Lily) and Ryan are in a pickleball tournament against a very competitive opponent named Veronica (played by June Diane Raphael), with comedians George Wallace and Sherry Cola inexplicably portraying themselves as announcers at the tournament. The outcome of this scene is inconsistent with the movie’s joke that Lily can’t handle being in Tess’ older body.

There’s also plenty of fan service for those who like 2003’s “Freaky Friday.” Murray reprises his role as Jake, a bachelor who’s still a heartthrob. Jake is now the owner/manager of a record store called the Record Parlour. Jake gets unwittingly pulled into a scheme to break up Anna and Eric. And toward the end of the movie, “Freakier Friday” shows an amusing reference to a “Freaky Friday” subplot when Jake briefly had a crush on Tess when Anna was in Tess’ body.

“Freakier Friday” also has cameos from other alumni of 2003’s “Freaky Friday”: Stephen Tobolowsky reprises his role as Elton Bates, the high school’s mean-spirited teacher who has a grudge against Tess and her family because decades ago, Tess rejected his invitation to take Tess to their school prom. When Harper asks Mr. Bates why he hasn’t retired yet, there’s a hilarious answer.

Chao and Soong return as Pei-Pei (who is called Mama P in “Freakier Friday”) and Pei-Pei’s mother (whose name is listed in the end credits as Grandma Chiang), who do the catering for Anna’s bachelorette party. Malgarini makes a quick appearance as Anna’s younger brother Harry. And don’t be surprised if certain Pink Slip members show up in “Freakier Friday.” Some of these cameos are predictable, but they’re handled very well.

Curtis, who was the MVP of 2003’s “Freaky Friday,” continues to be the standout cast member who is the most convincing and the funniest in the body swap scenes. She also handles the emotionally dramatic scenes with great aplomb. Butters shows a lot of talent and admirable comedic timing, even though “Freakier Friday” has an understandably more mature and calmer version of Anna. Lohan and Hammons do well in their roles, although they’re not consistently great in their body swap scenes.

Of the supporting cast members, Bayer is a scene stealer who makes everything she does very funny. Jacinto does the best that he can with a generic character. Murray gamely pokes fun at his sex-symbol image, especially since “Freakier Friday” makes Jake more confused than ever by the antics of Anna and Tess.

“Freakier Friday” is an ambitious film whose flaws have to do with trying to be many things at the same time: a screwball “body swap” comedy, a romantic saga, an emotional family film, and a nostalgia-filled sequel. Much of the cluttered tone of the movie has to do with the introduction of several new characters. Credit should be given to director Ganatra for reigning in most of the mess that could have been made. Anyone who sees “Freakier Friday” is better off seeing 2003’s “Freaky Friday” first, or else risk getting drowned in some confusion.

Walt Disney Pictures will release “Freakier Friday” in U.S. cinemas on August 8, 2025.

Review: ‘The High Note,’ starring Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Ice Cube

May 29, 2020

by Carla Hay

“The High Note”

Directed by Nisha Ganatra

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Los Angeles, the comedy/drama “The High Note” features a racially diverse cast (white, African American, Asian and Latino) representing the middle-class and upper-class.

Culture Clash: A personal assistant to a superstar music diva comes up against obstacles when the assistant tries to become a music producer.

Culture Audience: “The High Note” will appeal primarily to people who like formulaic movies about showbiz that have a predictable ending.

Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Dakota Johnson in “The High Note” (Photo by Glen Wilson/Focus Features)

It’s a pretty well-known fact at “The High Note” stars Tracey Ellis Ross and Dakota Johnson grew up in the upper echelons of show business, since they both have parents who are famous entertainers. Ellis Ross’ mother is Diana Ross. Johnson is the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. So with all that knowledgeable background, it’s too bad that Dakota Johnson and Ellis Ross have chosen to be in such a hollow and predictable dramedy about the music business. The irony of this movie being called “The High Note” is that there aren’t too many highlights for this film, when it comes to authenticity, laugh-out-loud humor or outstanding original songs.

However, one of the notable consistencies of the film is Ellis Ross—who does her own singing in the film and is very good at it— in her performance as spoiled superstar Grace Davis, who’s reached a crossroads in her career. Grace, who lives in Los Angeles, is famous enough to still be on the covers of People, Rolling Stone and Billboard, but she’s been coasting on her past hits because she hasn’t come out with an album of new songs in about 10 years. She still keeps herself in the public eye and continues to make millions by doing tours.

Grace’s long-suffering personal assistant Margaret “Maggie” Sherwoode has been working for Grace for three years, but what Maggie really wants to do is to be a music producer. Grace is coming out with a live album that Maggie has been secretly mixing in a recording studio in her spare time, in order for Maggie to practice her producer/mixer skills. Maggie has been able to get access to the studio, thanks to her recording engineer acquaintance Seth (played by Eugene Cordero), who’s worked with Grace and has been training Maggie in the studio.

“The High Note,” directed by Nisha Ganatra, hits a lot of the same cringeworthy beats of Ganatra’s 2019 comedy/drama “Late Night,” a movie that flopped with audiences because it was easy to see how phony and pandering the story was. Both movies are about a plucky young woman with a big dream who thinks she can take a shortcut to that dream, just by being in the right place at the right time. The young woman works for an egotistical, middle-aged diva who’s worried about becoming a has-been. The diva boss also has to choose between continuing with a familiar and safe work routine or going outside her comfort zone to do something new.

Along the way, people discourage the young woman from following her dream because she has no real experience. And then, she and her boss end up clashing in a big way because the young woman does something that the boss really hates. (Viewers have to wait until the end of the movie to see if or how this conflict is resolved.) And this young woman ends up dating someone she works with, even though dating a co-worker is a tricky issue in this #MeToo era, when a consensual affair between co-workers can be described in very different terms later if the relationship ends badly.

In “Late Night,” which was set in the workplace of a New York City-based late-night talk show, Mindy Kaling (who wrote the “Late Night” screenplay) played the show’s inexperienced and unqualified writer Molly Patel, who’s a “diversity hire,” while Emma Thompson played the prickly boss Katherine Newbury, the show’s host/executive producer. Except for the cities and types of work in the entertainment industry, “The High Note” and “Late Night” have the same premise and are basically the same type of movie, but “The High Note” is much worse than “Late Night.”

Fortunately, Maggie in “The High Note” (written by Flora Greeson) isn’t as clueless about music as Mindy Kaling’s Molly character in “Late Night” is clueless about writing for a late-night talk show. Maggie is a true music trivia buff, who can easily name songs and albums from classic artists to contemporary hitmakers. (Sam Cooke and Carole King are among her favorite classic artists.) Maggie also comes from a music-oriented family: Her father Max (played by Bill Pullman) is a longtime radio DJ, while Maggie’s mother (who died when Maggie was 6) was a singer.

But knowing a lot of music trivia and being a talented music producer are two different things. What will make people’s eyes roll about the dumb aspects of “The High Note” is that Maggie thinks she can go from these training sessions in the recording studio to becoming Grace’s producer, without actually putting in a lot of real work as a producer to pay her dues.

Grace’s harsh and cynical manager Jack Robertson (played by Ice Cube, in yet another in his long list of cranky, foul-mouthed character roles) essentially tells Maggie that she’s acting like an entitled brat in one of the few realistic scenes in the movie. This verbal takedown of Maggie’s ego comes after Maggie insults a smarmy and pretentious but experienced hitmaking DJ/producer named Richie Williams (played in a somewhat hilarious cameo by real-life hitmaking DJ/producer Diplo), who’s recruited by Jack to work on Grace’s live album. Maggie, who’s revealed her secret mixes to Grace at this point, wants Grace to choose Maggie’s mixes instead.

Jack doesn’t particularly like Maggie for another reason. While Jack has been finagling and pressuring Grace to do a Las Vegas residency, Maggie has been encouraging Grace to make an album of new songs instead. The Vegas residency would be easy money for everyone, but Maggie thinks Grace has a lot more to say as an artist instead of doing the same show every night in Vegas for an untold number of years. In a candid conversation with Grace, Maggie tells her that she once saw Grace say in an Oprah Winfrey interview about Grace’s career: “If there are no more surprises, who am I doing it for?”

Although the Jack character is greedy, attention-hungry and generally unlikable, his persona as a manager is actually one of the more realistic things in the movie. One of the other things that “The High Note” accurately portrays is how personal assistants of rich and famous people are often treated like 24-hour-a-day on-call servants. Grace is also one of those “lonely at the top” celebrities who has no real friends and has shallow dating relationships that don’t last, and that’s why her life revolves around her career.

“The High Note” also has a pretty good send-up of the false sense of superiority that employees who work for the same celebrity can have toward other employees. Grace has a materialistic and not-very-smart house manager named Gail (played by June Diane Raphael), who acts as if she’s better than Maggie, simply because Gail gets to have reasonable working hours while Maggie does not. Gail is also the type of “yes”-person leech that Hollywood is famous for attracting when people want to be close to celebrities.

Meanwhile, Maggie has a smart and likable roommate named Katie (played by Zoe Chao), who thinks Maggie is wasting her talent by being a personal assistant. Maggie’s excuse for continuing to be stuck in the dead-end existence of being Grace’s assistant: “It’s the gateway to my dream job.” Katie’s reply: “It’s the gateway to Stockholm syndrome.” That’s one of the funnier lines in the movie.

As for Maggie’s love interest (because you know a movie like this has to have a love interest for the ingenue), his name is David Cliff (played by Kelvin Harrison Jr.), an aspiring rock/pop musician who happens to be rich enough to own a mansion without working at a “real” job. Of course, Maggie doesn’t know all of that about David when they “meet cute” at a Laurel Canyon grocery store. While they’re standing near each other, Phantom Planet’s “California” song is playing over the store’s speakers, which leads Maggie and David to have a lively conversation about music.

When Maggie mentions Sam Cooke, she’s appalled that David says he doesn’t know who Sam Cooke is. They go their separate ways. But lo and behold, when Maggie leaves the store, she sees David playing a guitar outside the store’s entrance and singing Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me” while he gives her a sly look. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

At some point, Maggie and Katie are invited to a big house party at David’s place, and that’s how they find out that he’s a musician who’s not financially struggling. So why is this rich guy playing substandard gigs, such as singing cover songs in front of a grocery store? It turns out that David lacks confidence to record his own music and take his career to the next level. And guess who convinces David that she can be his producer?

Of course, in a movie like this, there has to be at least one “big lie/secret” that someone will tell early in the relationship, so that the couple will fight about it later if the secret is revealed. For Maggie, her big lie is that she tells David that she’s an experienced and busy producer, which is why he agrees to let her produce his first demo recording.

And this is where the plot goes down the toilet: David believes Maggie’s claim that she’s an experienced producer, without even asking to hear other music she’s produced, without asking for references, or without doing a background check. Cue to the predictable scene of David and Maggie singing together in a recording booth. (Harrison and Dakota Johnson also do their own singing in the movie. He’s a much better singer than she is.)

As for Maggie, she doesn’t seem that curious to know how or why David is so wealthy. All he’s told her about his family background is that he was raised by his father (a saxophone player named David Cliff Sr.) after David’s mother left them when he was a very young child. For a movie that’s supposed to take place in the present-day music business, it strangely and unrealistically has no scenes of David and Maggie using the Internet to check each other out when they show an interest in each other.

After Maggie and David start sleeping together, she comes up with a dumb idea to trick him into being the opening act for Grace’s record release party—without telling David, Grace or Jack. And in order to do that, Maggie secretly convinces star singer Dan Deakins (played by Eddie Izzard, in a cameo that’s a waste of his talent), who was booked as the opening act, to back out of the gig. How does Maggie convince Dan to cancel this high-profile job? Just by playing David’s demo for Dan and asking Dan to do her this favor, even though Maggie and Dan just met. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Whether or not this moronic plan works or backfires is spoiler information that won’t be revealed in this review. But that stupidity is nothing compared to the ludicrous plot twist that comes toward the end of the film. It’s a plot twist that’s not too surprising because all the signs were there, but it’s still the worst part of the movie.

There’s not much originality in “The High Note,” even in the movie’s soundtrack, which has mostly cover songs or hit songs that were previously released. “Bad Girl,” which is supposed to be Grace’s biggest hit, is a cover version of the Lee Moses song. In “The High Note,” the Grace character has two original songs that are prominently featured in the movie and are performed by Ellis Ross: “Stop for a Minute” and “Love Myself,” which is the tune heard during the end credits.

“Stop for a Minute” was co-written by Rodney Jerkins, who executive produced “The High Note” soundtrack. “Love Myself” was co-written by Greg Kurstin, who’s best known for his work with Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Beck and Sia. But even the contributions of these Grammy-winning hitmakers don’t make these songs particularly outstanding or likely to be nominated for any Grammys.

In fact, there’s a lot of things about “The High Note” that are dull (including the too-long running time of nearly two hours), forgettable or just plain awful. The stars of “The High Note” should not consider it a high point of their careers, because the reality is that the movie is a lackluster low point that they’d probably like to bury.

Focus Features released “The High Note” on VOD and digital on May 29, 2020.