“I never want to be like you”: This sentence has probably thrown this sentence towards his parents. Anna Coleman (Lindsay Lohan) has also been like this-but around 20 years after she has literally ended up in the shoes of her mother Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis), the dynamic has now changed: Anna is now a single mother and leads the same tabby discussions with her 15-year-old daughter Harper (Julia Butters) Rolling eyes and annoyed. Meanwhile, Tess has established the role of cool grandmother, who, as a retired psychologist and recently, always finds the right words to make matters worse. “I'm the funny one here!” She is outraged accordingly when Anna Harper wants to unload her grandma as a punishment.
In the cult classic “Freaky Friday” (2003), mother and daughter had to swap her bodies in order to learn a little better in the end. But only life did it, which even an enchanted lucky biscuit was unable to afford: Both are mutated into the younger version of each. The late sequel “Freakier Friday” now cleverly uses recourse to the original (which was “only” a remake of “a very crazy Friday”) to illustrate them: “make good decisions”, calls Anna from the car window after leaving her daughter at school. “You are so embarrassing,” does not answer Harper – but Tess, from whom Anna has listened to the sentence in her own childhood.
22 years after “Freaky Friday” it starts again – and this time there is even a double exchange of body!
But everything gets much more complicated: Anna-who has buried her rock star dreams and is now working as a manager for the emerging pop star Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan)-falls in love for one Meet Cute At the school hall in Eric Reyes (Manny Jancito), the extremely attractive father of Harper's high school enemy Lily (Sophia Hammons). A polaroid assembly later are already forged wedding plans-and then Anna and Eric even decide to move to London with the entire family from Los Angeles. There is plenty of conflict potential in this patchwork constellation-can a new body exchange remedy remedy?
It takes a little time for “Freakier Friday” to arrive at his decisive plot element – after all, Nisha Ganatra (“Late Night”), which has stepped in for original director Mark Waters, has a lot. And after the film then finally duplicate with the help of the fortune teller Jen (Vanessa Bayer) surprised by her own skills – twice! -Body-Switch comedy has become, it becomes quite confusing: Not only does Anna exchanged the body with her daughter, on top of that, Tess and Harper's unpopular future steps sister also change the roles-which leads to the first time that you have to ask yourself again and again who is?
Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis harmonize perfectly again
But what looks cumbersome at first reveals its meaning as soon as the four split into groups of two. Because in “Freakier Friday” not only all sorts of lessons have to be learned and compromises have to be closed, Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, in particular, have to interact as if they had the fun of two decades-which the film allows them to adapt in the rules of the body switch comedy.
The genre moves its comic primarily out of differences and the fact that it exposes its characters to everyday life that is actually not intended for them. However, Harper and Lily (in their “new” bodies) still have to balance their personal relationship, but on the one hand they have the same goal – Anna and Eric distinguish them apart and in this way prevent the dreaded move – on the other hand they come from the same living environment. In addition, Lily may have no idea which Essentials You should put you in the shopping basket in the senior department of the local drugstore – but in Anna's profession you and Harper work straight away, as you just understand better what a love -suffering pop singer of her age moves. “Freakier Friday” is more looking for the connecting than the separating one, which also gives the interaction between Lohan and Curtis a new flow (under their chemistry suffering at best the two younger actresses who have to be satisfied with significantly less screen time).
Is Harper in the body of Anna (Lindsay Lohan) succeed in bringing her mother back together with childhood friend Jake (Chad Michael Murray)?
If you go to your sabotage mission-equipped with plenty of Gen-Z energy-in particular seems to be really blossoming after her Netflix has recently built barely grateful stages for her overdue comeback. Curtis – from the role of roles with a wide and false British accent – runs again to a comedic top form at your side. According to “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and “The Naked Cam”, it is gradually becoming increasingly clear what the actual determination of the genre of the Legacy sequel, which is as successful and often scolded is: to bring the comedy (and with it also names like Lohan) back to the cinema.
Director Nisha Ganatra works at the speed of her ensemble, while the script translates the generation faults on several fronts in sometimes great bonmops via cell phone settings for seniors (the “huge-letter virus”) or Facebook (“A kind of database for old people”). There are circumyling sequences, a strike in the bright red 69 Chevrolet Camaro and a reference-rich, to the cartoon-like bordering slapstick sequence, in which Harper tries in a record shop, according to the instructions of the Lily (Chad Michael, which is disguised behind Madonna and Britney Spears Vinylcovern (Chad Michael Murray).
Have to be satisfied with comparatively little screen time: Sophia Hammons (first Lily, then Tess) and Julia Butters (first Harper, then Anna).
“Freakier Friday” constantly resists the temptation to give his substance a effort to give a long -minded touch. The digital (but hardly less colorful) look, the age of the stars and the fact that, instead of the skate punk typical at the turn of the millennium, two Chappell-Roan songs can now be heard on the soundtrack instead of the Soundtrack, typical.
Otherwise, the film clearly breathes the carefree spirit of a zero-year comedy, but without becoming a purely rewarded matter (even though its timing could hardly be better in times of rampant Y2K nostalgia). Director Ganatra doses the inevitable callbacks comparatively sparingly and rather stages their late sequel as if this kind of escapist pop cinema has never died out. In the end, mother and daughter are on the concert stage and are literally again in tuneand instead of calling up for moderation, the film ends with a relaxed plea for age limits. Hopefully Hollywood will rediscover what it has about these simple and timelessly effective formulas.
Conclusion: “Freakier Friday” remains true to the spirit of the predecessor without losing itself in nostalgia. The fact that the film works is mainly due to Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, who again harmonize just as perfectly as 22 years ago.