Metro Pulse/Movie Guru/Freaky Friday

Movie Guru Rating:

Meditative (3 out of 5)

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A thought-free version of a mom-daughter switch

by Adrienne Martini

In my house, it has already started. The wee girl child who was once only content if she were snuggled in the crook of my arm is now only happy if her feet are on the ground and she is walking away from me. Picking her up—say, to keep her from careening into traffic—is met with squeals and screeches that make passers-by think I'm about to strangle the baby. While her new-found independence rocks in many ways, I've already started to grit my teeth about what is to come. It just can't be good.

There's a special relationship between teenage girls and their moms. If there isn't at least one good door-slamming, neighbor-waking shout-fest per month, then neither one is doing her job right. Which isn't to say that mothers and sons or fathers and daughters don't have their own issues to overcome, just that the mother-daughter thing keeps turning up as great movie fodder. Everyone loves a good catfight, I guess.

Mary Rodger's book Freaky Friday has always been required reading for the tween set, wedged on the bookshelf next to Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. A Billion for Boris is arguably Rodger's better book, but it isn't nearly as sexy as the body-switching antics afoot in Freaky. For those who have been asleep for the last 20 years and/or have never been female and 15, Freaky Friday�is all about a mother and daughter switching bodies for a bit because they've been afflicted by a mysterious Asian curse. Important lessons are, of course, learned, like, for instance, never trust a Chinese woman bearing fortune cookies, especially if you are in a Hollywood movie.

This most recent iteration of the tale—this time with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan taking the place of Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster, who starred in the 1976 version—is pleasant enough. The updates help, if for no other reason than no one is wearing double-knit bell bottoms in the 2003 version of this tale. Instead of a housewife, mom is now single and a career gal. The daughter is no longer just a geek; now she is a rebel (in a Disney sort of way) in a rock band.

It helps that Lohan and Curtis are both addictively watchable. Both have an approachable confidence that makes the fantasy work. They believe it, and so you should, too. And when it all sorts itself out, the audience still feels that they've been on a satisfying journey—despite the fact that we already know what all of the stops along the way will be. If all you are looking for is a nice movie to chat about with your teen while you drive home from the multiplex, then this is a great choice, and you can stop reading this review right here.

But there's just so much else inherent in this story that never gets explored—not by Rodgers, not by the screenwriters of either movie version or the craptacular TV remake with Shelley Long. Here is the perfect medium for exploring what how parents try to live through their kids—literally, in this case—and how that can be just as fraught with angst, slapstick hijinks, and life lessons. Or how kids would really use the relative freedom that adulthood grants. Why do these freshly-minted adult-teen hybrids always choose to go to work, rather than, say, a liquor store? Sheesh. Kids today.

It could go even deeper. In Freaky '03, Lohan falls for a nice boy on a motorcycle. Curtis, of course, disapproves, until, while in Lohan's body, she gets to know the kid. But what if she really�got to know the kid and explored aspects of momdom that are rarely hinted at, which is that moms can get swoony about cute teenage boys on bikes, too. Or if Lohan gave in to her teenage curiosity about what sex is really like. Or what it would be like for both the mom and the teenager got to be like real moms and teenagers, instead of what the suits in the office would like them to be. While these two actresses could easily play these depths, they never get the chance. It's a shame, really.

It's complicated, this mother and daughter thing. One of these days, it'd be nice if a Hollywood film could explore it with the same honesty that it stories middle-aged men who fall in love with young girls. Until more mothers start running major studios, however, moms with brains will be forced to sit through well-made but thought-free films like Freaky Friday.