Freaky Friday, based on the novel by Mary
Rodgers
Eight out
of 10
Some could
dismiss this comedy as absurd, with a preposterous premise that does not
contribute in any way to our betterment, a film that has nothing of the meaning
offered by Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
and Monty Python’s Life of Brian, to name just a couple of comic masterpieces.
However, Freaky
Friday does invite you to think, if not sink deep in meditation, about the
differences between parents and their teenage children, the gap in
understanding and how important it is to:
Place yourself
in the other’s shoes…
This is exactly
, literally what happens to Tess Coleman aka a fresh, innovative, charming, at
times radiant Jamie Lee Curtis – famous for A Fish Called Wanda, another great
comedy – and Anna Coleman aka a good actress in this role, if the beneficiary
of ales than perfect reputation Lindsay Rohan.
After they quarrel
in a Chinese restaurant, one of the patrons, an older woman gives them a
fortune cookie that is supposed to cause a dramatic, calamitous effect.
Mother and
daughter change bodies and when they wake up in the morning they make us laugh,
for the teenage looking mother tries hard to get her adolescent daughter out of
bed, in spite of the fact that she now has the body of a fully-grown, middle-aged
woman.
Things are
complicated and kept amusing by the arrival of Ryan, the man who is supposed to
marry Tess in a matter of days and who is now expected to kiss, embrace, cuddle
with the daughter, who would have nothing of the kind.
Now that
this is in writing, we could filter this with the new rules imposed by the
#MeToo movement and perhaps think that there is a dose of sickness in the idea
that an adult is embracing an underage girl, especially against her will…
Hm!
Well, let
us just conclude that this type of plot would not see the light of day in this
moment.
On the
other hand, we need to emphasize and repeat that they have different bodies and
it is obviously not just a farfetched, impossible idea, but an oxymoron and
here just for comic purposes.
Anna is throughout
the transition to her mother’s organism unwilling to approach her husband-to-be
and this makes for mirthful moments, provided of course we do not think in terms
of young girl in the arms of stepfather in waiting.
When he comes
close to her, she tries all sorts of escape artist tricks and they fall on the
couch.
As soon as
she has her mother’s bag, the girl is jumping at the occasion and walks into a
store from where she buys some eccentric, flashy clothes, cuts her hair so much
that the “real” middle aged is horrified, pierces her ear and indulges in other
excesses.
Most important,
older as she now is, she gets too close to Jake, a young man that Anna Fancies,
even now when she looks so much older than he is, but they love the same outré music,
she travels with him on the motor bike.
Meanwhile,
Anna who is Tess has trouble with a former friend who pushes her, even traps
her into an exam, where she pretends to be friendly, writes a note saying how
good it is that they are close again now, only to call on her supervisor and
have her in detention for allegedly trying to copy and cheat.
Mr. Bates,
an arrogant, vicious professor makes life harder for the mother who is again in
class now, for when he asks about Hamlet, Anna aka Tess gives some interesting
answers, but the teacher rejects them, unfairly.
He in fact
gives top grades to another student, who had almost no idea who Hamlet was,
never mind an in debt knowledge of his sorrow, existential travails, concern
with the meaning of life…
Anna has a
younger brother and she is mean with him – when Ryan intends to take him to his
school, after they have dropped the mother in the daughter’s body, Anna says he
can walk to school…
But, it is twenty streets away!
You will manage!
Nevertheless,
the two get close when the sister – in the shape of the mother – is invited in
school and finds a laudatory, admiring story written by Harry, who appreciates
and loves his sister so much.
Freaky Friday
is not the ultimate comedy, but it has some very strong points and amusing scenes.
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