Quick synopsis: Two decades after an identity crisis, Anna’s blended family faces new challenges. Tess and Anna discover their past may be repeating with the next generation.

I know I’ve seen the 2003 version of Freaky Friday, but my main memory of it is that it had a Halo Friendlies song in it, guitar-focused female-vocal pop punk is my jam. I remember the basic plot, and the two leads, but that’s pretty much it. Added to that, I have a feeling that “straight male in his late 30s” is not the target audience for this. So I was prepared for my feelings towards this movie to be “it’s okay” at best, a solid 5/10. Thoroughly okay, but not for me.

Yup, that’s wrong, this film is good. Really good. It’s smart, funny, and genuinely heartwarming. It does a good job of catching newcomers up to speed with what happened in the first movie, without repeating itself so much that it bores fans who can remember what happened. I recognised enough “hey, it’s a reference” moments that I get the feeling fans of the 2003 version will get more out of it than those who haven’t watched it. I don’t know why I was surprised; it’s directed by Nisha Ganatra, who also directed Late Night, which was one of my favourite films of 2019. She knows how to do comedy, plus has a talent for getting the best out of actors, both established (Emma Thompson in Late Night, Curtis in this) and new.

It’s not said enough, but Jamie Lee Curtis is incredible. She NAILS her performance here. Body swap movies can be difficult for performers, as you need to behave in such a way that the audience never forgets the premise; they need to remember, “Okay, that’s so-and-so in that body”. There’s not a single moment where Curtis slips up. Lohan? She’s good, but there are a few moments where its easier to forget than it should be that she’s been bodyswapped. Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons fare slightly better, but that’s mainly because they’re given more to do physically.

The supporting cast also does their job. Even those only in a few scenes (Vanessa Bayer, X Mayo) give such strong performances that you wouldn’t object to them coming back in a sequel. I want to give particular recognition to Sherry Cola and Santina Muha for only being in one scene each, but being incredibly memorable, especially Muha as I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen her in anything, and her performance was so good in this that my brain automatically cast her in the book I’m currently reading.

There aren’t many “laugh uproariously” moments, but you’d need a heart of stone to not be charmed and amused by many of the moments here. I have a few quibbles with the script, the main one being the opening. The opening is fine, it does its job well, and I have no issues with it on its own. But there’s a montage of Anna and Eric’s relationship developing and growing that would have been PERFECT for the opening credits. With that in mind, it’s difficult to not see some moments as a bit superfluous. I’m not asking for all of it to be cut, but you could easily get it down to 5-10 minutes and THEN have the relationship play out. There are other moments where you could poke holes in the logic or storytelling. But, to be honest, you don’t really want to. It’s such a lovable film that doing that would feel weirdly cruel.

Not amazingly fantastically brilliant, but very good. Although “Lindsey Lohan tries to stop a father marrying someone she doesn’t approve of”? You sneaked a Parent Trap sequel past us, didn’t you?