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FREAKY FRIDAY Send This Review to a Friend
In this remake from Disney, actress Jamie Lee Curtis gets to strut her considerable comic stuff as a mom who learns what it is like to be a teenager when she and her daughter swap bodies thanks to magical fortune cookies supplied by a Chinese woman when she hears them arguing and wants to help. The premise, taken from Mary Rodgers's children's novel, is terribly silly.
The saving grace is the performance by Curtis, who gets to act like a high school student with an assortment of awkward moves, pained expressions and other indicators of the age bracket. She's consistently very funny. Lindsay Lohan as her daughter handles the situation deftly too, as she goes from her surly, rebellious self to understanding what mom's life is all about.
The plot involves the daughter's need to adjust to the new man in her mother's life, and the mother's need to get with it to reach an understanding of the problems of her daughter.
Screenwriters Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon work the complications as far as they can be stretched, including having the boy the daughter likes fall for mom. (So what else did you expect?) Mark Waters directs with an understanding that spotlighting the talent of Curtis is the best way to go. But you have to be in the mood for the film's premise in the first place, as the idea is extremely lightweight. A Disney Pictures release.
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