MOVIE REVIEW
Freaky Friday: Like, Jamie Lee Curtis, You, Like, Rock

By Fred Choi
Staff Reporter

Directed by Mark S. Waters
Written by Heather Hach
From the novel by Mary Rodgers
Featuring Jamie Lee Curtis (Tess Coleman), Lindsay Lohan (Annabell
Coleman), Mark Harmon (Ryan), Harold Gould (Grandpa), Chad Murray
(Jake), Ryan Malgarini (Harry Coleman)
Rated PG

Despite being a live action film from that warhorse of all stodgy
warhorses Walt Disney Studios, Freaky Friday, starring Jamie Lee
Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, is a feel good comedy that's hip enough you
won't feel too embarassed if you show up in the theater with someone
other than your mom.

The premise of Freaky Friday is the same as the 1972 novel by Mary
Rodgers and the 1976 movie adaptation which starred a cute as a button
Jodie Foster, fresh from her precociously virtuosic star turn in Taxi
Driver. In all three a mother and her willful adolescent daughter
switch bodies for a day and learn to literally "walk in the other's
shoes", with predictably warm and fuzzy results. The remake, made no
doubt due to the success of Lohan's role in Disney's 1998 remake of
The Parent Trap, contemporizes the setting and the characters
appropriately. Here Curtis plays Tess, a rather staid single mother
raising a family while juggling cell phones and PDAs, while Lohan as
her daughter Annabell whines, sulks, moons over an older boy, and
plays in a rock band.

Like, gag, are teenage girls like the most annoying thing ever or
what? Not to worry, despite Annabell's trivial daily crises and the
obligatory hoky ending, the movie throws in enough fun moments,
especially in the scenes with Curtis as Annabell, to keep you watching
to the end. Although some scenes are a bit predictable and rather too
many of the jokes were wasted because they were included in the
previews, the film does a nice job of exploiting the humor in the
confusion of the personality switch, as in Annabell's reaction to
being in Tess's body ("I'm like the crypt keeper!") and Tess's
reaction to being in Annabell's body ("You pierced your navel?!
... Well, when you get your body back, it's grounded!"). Tess's
impending wedding and Annabell's band audition adds needed suspense,
while supporting characters, including Tess's chipmunk-faced son Harry
(Ryan Malgarini) and Annabell's motorcycle-riding love interest Jake
(Chad Murray), add some of the movie's most hilarious moments. Keep an
eye out for Harry's increasingly baffled expression in the scene when
he first encounters his switched mother and sister and the scene in
the coffeehouse in which a completely confused Jake finds himself
falling for the mom of the girl he liked.

Viewers who grew up listening to Michael Jackson or the Backstreet
Boys instead of Elvis or Frank Sinatra may recognize that Heather Hach
doesn't quite get the teen's slang right. Similarly although Lohan
does a competent job in the relatively straightforward role as
Annabell as Tess, Jamie Lee Curtis is a few years off in her portrayal
of Tess as Annabell, acting more like a 12 year old than a 15 year
old. Still, she manages to inject enough raw enthusiasm and energy
into the sometimes clever script that, with the help of the rest of
the cast, makes this a viable mainstream alternative to the majority
of summer's other, painfully dull selections.

Summary:
3 out of 4 stars
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan star in this feel good remake
that's hip enough you won't feel too embarassed if you show up in the
theater with someone other than your mom. Although the teenager's
slang and Jamie Lee Curtis's portrayal of a 15 year old is a little
off, Curtis's raw enthusiasm and energy and a sometimes clever script
make this a viable mainstream alternative to the majority of summer's
other, painfully dull selections.