New Freaky Friday is fun for any generation

Over 20 years since the original Freaky Friday (2003) premiered, Jamie Lee Curtis returned to London, this time joined by co-stars Lindsay Lohan and Chad Michael Murray, along with newcomers Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, and Manny Jacinto. Director Nisha Ganatra was also in attendance, along with Producer Kristin Burr and Screenwriter Jordan Weiss.

Out on Friday 8th August, Freakier Friday is the latest in a host of sequels over the last few years that sees studios mine their back-catalogues to capitalise on nostalgic intellectual properties that are loved by original fans in the hope of finding new audiences, and I doubt this film will disappoint the Y2K teens that would now be in (or beyond) their 30's.

Like other legacy sequels such as Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Freakier Friday has brought back many of the cast from the original to reprise their roles at the delight of the fans without going down the Happy Gilmore 2 route of squeezing in a range of cameos to please the new younger audience. This film can be enjoyed on its own merit, without relying on the source material, but with enough throwback moments to really get older viewers reminiscing about a simpler time.

If you recall the premise of the 2003 original, then you have an idea of where this film is headed, and as a sequel, everything is bigger. More body swaps and higher risks, this outing could easily have made the mistake of many follow-up films and missed the mark, but nothing stood out as having been forced in for the sake of it. The leads from the original are still recognised names and did the job of wooing the crowds at the UK Premiere, while introducing the new generation of young talent in the form of Julia Butters and Sophia.

“Freakier Friday,” a sequel to the beloved 2003 film with a multigenerational twist starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. In the film, Curtis and Lohan reprise their roles as Tess and Anna Coleman. The story picks up years after Tess (Curtis) and Anna (Lohan) endured an identity crisis. Anna now has a daughter of her own and a soon-to-be stepdaughter. As they navigate the myriad challenges that come when two families merge, Tess and Anna discover that lightning might indeed strike twice.

I was expecting to just sit back and enjoy a wholesome predictable unravelling of pre-determined shenanigans but found myself enjoying the retelling of this story which has been retold multiple times since the 1972 book. Freakier Friday has captured the dilemmas increasingly experienced by blended families very well, and it peppers in the conflicts between stepsiblings with some great moments regarding generational differences.