August 6, 2003 | Despite what some film critics might tell you – hell, despite what this film critic often tells you – there’s nothing inherently wrong with remakes. Indeed, there’s something to be said for the idea of doing something over and over until you get it right. Keep in mind: John Huston’s classic version of The Maltese Falcon (1941) was the third attempt to film Dashiell Hammett’s definitive detective story.
The third time also proves to be the charm for Freaky Friday , one of the more pleasant surprises of the summer movie season. Credit the folks at Walt Disney Productions for recognizing the untapped potential of material – a popular 1972 children’s novel by Mary Rodgers — that had already been filmed twice by the studio.
For the benefit of those who tuned in late: The first version, a broadly played 1977 farce, paired Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster as a single mom and an adolescent daughter who magically swap personalities. (The comedy wasn’t a box-office smash – in the mid-1970s, Disney fared poorly with most live-action features – but it subsequently developed a large, loyal following.) In 1995, Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffman assumed lead roles in a made-for-TV recycling. Critics were not kind.
All the more reason, then, to appreciate the new and improved Freaky Friday . Jamie Lee Curtis shines as single mom Tess Coleman, a stressed-for-success psychotherapist, and newcomer Lindsay Lohan is appealing as Anna, Tess’ 15-year-old daughter. Each actress is adept at evoking the other’s body language and speech patterns after the personality switcheroo takes place. But Curtis bounds beyond mimicry and gimmickry. She’s nothing short of dazzling as she enjoys one of her relatively rare opportunities to showcase her splendid comic timing and graceful physicality.
In the early scenes, unfortunately, director Mark Waters errs on the side of obviousness while establishing the high-concept premise. Anna is a spirited, self-absorbed adolescent who repeatedly clashes with her younger brother, Harry (Ryan Malgarini), and chafes against restraints imposed by her totally uncool, control-freakish mom. Tess is a well-meaning but work-obsessed widow who doesn’t approve of Anna’s fashionably grungy attire, and usually takes Harry’s side when the little brat claims his sister is picking on him.
The mother-daughter squabbles escalate into a public shouting match in a Chinese restaurant two days before Tess’ marriage to the blandly affable Ryan (Mark Harmon). An aged waitress (Lucille Soong) intervenes by offering Anna and Tess some enchanted fortune cookies. The next morning, the spell is cast: Anna finds herself trapped in her mother’s fortysomething carcass (“I’m old! I look like The Crypt Keeper!”) while Tess is transported into her daughter’s more nubile body.
Once the expository details are out of the way, director Waters lightens his touch to allow for a freer, friskier sort of comedic interplay. Curtis – who hasn’t been this enjoyably antic since True Lies – plays for big laughs as Anna/Tess uses her mom’s credit cards to finance a more becomingly cool fashion and hairstyle makeover. Better still, Curtis strikes the perfect balance of lovestruck bliss and mounting anxiety in scenes with Chad Michael Murray as Jake, a hunky high-schooler who’s attracted to Anna (and, much to his hilarious discomfort, inexplicably drawn to Anna’s “mother”).
Lohan does a fine job of conveying Tess’ buttoned-down, chronically disapproving demeanor inside Anna’s form. She’s especially effective as she faces down a tyrannical teacher (Stephen Tobolowsky) with a hidden agenda, and reflexively turns motherly while Tess/Anna hangs out with Anna’s classmates. The climactic scenes at a rock concert, where Anna’s garage band auditions for a gig, and a wedding rehearsal, where Tess tearfully reconciles with her daughter, are predicable but amusingly well-played.
