August 6, 2003 | Despite what some film critics might tell you hell,
despite what this film critic often tells you there's nothing
inherently wrong with remakes. Indeed, there's something to be said for
the idea of doing something over and over until you get it right. Keep
in mind: John Huston's classic version of The Maltese Falcon (1941)
was the third attempt to film Dashiell Hammett's definitive
detective story.
The third time also proves to be the charm for Freaky Friday ,
one of the more pleasant surprises of the summer movie season. Credit
the folks at Walt Disney Productions for recognizing the untapped potential
of material a popular 1972 children's novel by Mary Rodgers -- that
had already been filmed twice by the studio.
For the benefit of those who tuned in late:
The first version, a broadly played 1977 farce, paired Barbara Harris
and Jodie Foster as a single mom and an adolescent daughter who magically
swap personalities. (The comedy wasn't a box-office smash in the mid-1970s, Disney fared poorly
with most live-action features but it subsequently developed a large,
loyal following.) In 1995, Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffman assumed lead
roles in a made-for-TV recycling. Critics were not kind.
All the more reason, then, to appreciate the new and improved Freaky
Friday . Jamie Lee Curtis shines as single mom Tess Coleman, a
stressed-for-success psychotherapist, and newcomer Lindsay Lohan is
appealing as Anna, Tess' 15-year-old daughter. Each actress is adept
at evoking the other's body language and speech patterns after the
personality switcheroo takes place. But Curtis bounds beyond mimicry
and gimmickry. She's nothing short of dazzling as she enjoys one of
her relatively rare opportunities to showcase her splendid comic timing
and graceful physicality.
In the early scenes, unfortunately, director Mark Waters errs on the
side of obviousness while establishing the high-concept premise. Anna
is a spirited, self-absorbed adolescent who repeatedly clashes with her
younger brother, Harry (Ryan Malgarini), and chafes against restraints
imposed by her totally uncool, control-freakish mom. Tess is a well-meaning
but work-obsessed widow who doesn't approve of Anna's fashionably grungy
attire, and usually takes Harry's side when the little brat claims his
sister is picking on him.
The mother-daughter squabbles escalate into
a public shouting match in a Chinese restaurant two days before Tess'
marriage to the blandly affable Ryan (Mark Harmon). An aged waitress
(Lucille Soong) intervenes by offering Anna and Tess some enchanted
fortune cookies. The next morning, the spell is cast: Anna finds herself
trapped in her mother's fortysomething carcass (I'm old! I look like The Crypt Keeper!)
while Tess is transported into her daughter's more nubile body.
Once the expository details are out of the
way, director Waters lightens his touch to allow for a freer, friskier
sort of comedic interplay. Curtis who
hasn't been this enjoyably antic since True Lies plays for
big laughs as Anna/Tess uses her mom's credit cards to finance a more
becomingly cool fashion and hairstyle makeover. Better still, Curtis
strikes the perfect balance of lovestruck bliss and mounting anxiety
in scenes with Chad Michael Murray as Jake, a hunky high-schooler who's
attracted to Anna (and, much to his hilarious discomfort, inexplicably
drawn to Anna's mother).
Lohan does a fine job of conveying Tess' buttoned-down, chronically
disapproving demeanor inside Anna's form. She's especially effective
as she faces down a tyrannical teacher (Stephen Tobolowsky) with a hidden
agenda, and reflexively turns motherly while Tess/Anna hangs out with
Anna's classmates. The climactic scenes at a rock concert, where Anna's
garage band auditions for a gig, and a wedding rehearsal, where Tess
tearfully reconciles with her daughter, are predicable but amusingly
well-played.