Freakier Friday (2025)

By: Mike Ward on Friday, August 08

PG Running Time: 111 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

Not gonna lie - seeing Lindsey Lohan back on screen, teaming with Jamie Lee Curtis, is kind of awesome. They have great chemistry and are having a ball here.
This may be Freakier Friday and a Disney comedy that is not meant to be taken seriously, but Julia Butters, playing Lohan’s daughter in the film, is a really talented actor.
For many, this will feel nostalgic - it resembles that late-1990s, early 2000s, Disney Channel movie kind of vibe.

NO

Why is this nearly two hours though? A consistently fun 85-90 minute movie exists here. At 111 minutes, the film is overlong and stuffed with too much fluff.
From a potential kiss on a beach to a recurring gag about a character crushing hard on Curtis’ grandmotherly character, with the personality of an underage girl, Freakier Friday, even within the context of what is happening, could cause some to raise an eyebrow.
The throwbacks to the previous movie are cute, but the film has too much going on to fully commit. Fans of the first film will want more, new fans will not make the connection, and the movie is a bit of a mess because of it.

OUR REVIEW

If I could think of one word which sums up most of the high-profile 2025 summer blockbusters, that word would be … fine. While some smaller films and documentaries have left quite an impression the last few months, your Marvel movies and animated films and legacy sequels and reboots have pretty much all been … fine.

The next blockbuster on the list is Freakier Friday, the sequel to Disney’s 2003 Freaky Friday remake which, back in the day, helped cement Jamie Lee Curtis’ status as a top-notch comedic actor with great range, while also serving as a launching pad to superstardom for Lindsay Lohan. Five years after charming audiences with The Parent Trap, a teenage Lohan found instant chemistry with Curtis in the body-swap film and the movie was a major box office success.

Lohan’s meteoric rise and precipitous fall would all happen very quickly. Another big hit, Mean Girls, in 2004, was followed by a series of underwhelming films. And by 2005 and 2006, tabloid headlines, a failed pop music career, arrests, drug issues and rehab all led to Lohan becoming just another teen star who “cracked,” and “couldn’t handle fame.” Easy for Hollywood to discard.

Say what you will but Lohan is resilient. She never really stopped working. She popped up in a Robert Altman movie. You can find her in a few mid-to-late-2000s awards hopefuls and she even made The Canyons, a movie with porn star James Deen in 2013. She might randomly pop up in a music video here and there and was an occasional guest on late-night talk shows. Did you know she even had a stint on London’s West End?

All of this to say - if we are in something of a “Lohanaissance,” I might be here for it. While critics may have balked, her three recent straight-to-Netflix films were well received by audiences. And now, Freakier Friday finds the 39-year-old actor back headlining her fifth Disney film.

Now … if we are being honest: as great as it is to have Lohan back with Curtis, the nostalgia can only take you so far. And Freakier Friday is kind of a mess. At 111 minutes, it runs out of things to do, prolongs the inevitable plot points we all know are coming, and feels like it could played just fine on Disney+.

Director Nisha Ganatra fills her film with the bubbly, retro feel of a late-1990s, early 2000s Disney movie. Everything is slightly manic - the dialogue, the editing, the pacing. It works for a while because Curtis and Lohan are so clearly happy to be working together again.

This time around, two sets of characters swap bodies after a fateful visit with a chatty, rent-by-hour psychic (Vanessa Bayer). Now in her mid-30s, music producer Anna (Lohan) is a single mother to rebellious teenager Harper (Julia Butters). After Harper gets into a kerfuffle in class with British girl Lily (Sophia Hammons), Anna meets Lily’s widowed father, Eric (Manny Jacinto). They quickly hit it off, fall in love, and are engaged to be married six months later.

Meanwhile, Curtis’ character Tess is now a successful author and podcaster, focusing on healthy relationships. Tess is heavily involved in helping co-parent Harper, who just wants to surf and sleep most of the time.

And wacky Disney hijinks ensue.

There’s slapstick comedy. Everything feels like a big deal. Emotions are always heightened. Harper and Lily decide that, to avoid being stepsisters, they will ruin Anna and Eric’s newfound engagement. Tess is in the middle of everything.

In one of the weaker subplots, Anna bemoans giving up her potential music career with band Pink Slip, and now manages burgeoning pop star Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who is wrecked with anxiety, touring through a breakup and preparing for a huge concert at the legendary Wiltern in L.A.

As you see, there’s a lot going on here. Had Ganatra opted for a less is more approach, the movie could ahve established some deeper comedic roots. Instead, because everything has the filter of “Disney Channel madness,” this comes off amusing at best.

One of the funniest gags revolves around Chad Michael Murray, returning as Lohan’s former high school boyfriend Jake. He has an instant attraction to Tess, remembering her personality as Anna’s from before. Except now, Tess is body-swapped with Lily, an underage high school girl, and … you know, let’s just move this along.

Julia Butters is a really talented actor and the best in show here, amplifying screenwriter Jordan Weiss’ simplistic, episodic material into something worth paying attention to. Lohan and Curtis pick right up where they left off and Curtis finds some emotional heft with her portrayal. Hammons struggles at times with her British accent, but overall holds her own.

In reality, Freakier Friday should be no longer than 90 minutes. A tighter, more focused story would have made the jokes pop faster, the energy more sustainable, and avoid us being bogged down with predictable plot points we see coming from a mile away.

But here’s the thing. At the end of the day, I chuckled. The movie is amusing and lightly entertaining and everyone is having a ball.

Are we in a Lohanaissance? Time will tell. but Freakier Friday is fine enough for me.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Chad Michael Murray, Christina Vidal, Haley Hudson, X Mayo, Rosalind Chao, Vanessa Bayer, Stephen Tobolowsky, Chloe Fineman, Elaine Hendrix

Director: Nisha Ganatra
Written by: Jordan Weiss (screenplay); Elyse Hollander, Jordan Weiss (story)
Based on the novel “Freaky Friday" by Mary Rodgers and characters created by Leslie Dixon and Heather Hach
Release Date: August 8, 2025
Walt Disney Pictures

Not gonna lie - seeing Lindsey Lohan back on screen, teaming with Jamie Lee Curtis, is kind of awesome. They have great chemistry and are having a ball here.

This may be Freakier Friday and a Disney comedy that is not meant to be taken seriously, but Julia Butters, playing Lohan’s daughter in the film, is a really talented actor.

For many, this will feel nostalgic - it resembles that late-1990s, early 2000s, Disney Channel movie kind of vibe.

Why is this nearly two hours though? A consistently fun 85-90 minute movie exists here. At 111 minutes, the film is overlong and stuffed with too much fluff.

From a potential kiss on a beach to a recurring gag about a character crushing hard on Curtis’ grandmotherly character, with the personality of an underage girl, Freakier Friday, even within the context of what is happening, could cause some to raise an eyebrow.

The throwbacks to the previous movie are cute, but the film has too much going on to fully commit. Fans of the first film will want more, new fans will not make the connection, and the movie is a bit of a mess because of it.