Freaky Friday

Directed by Mark Waters, Freaky Friday follows a squabbling mother (Jamie Lee Curtis’ Tess) and daughter (Lindsay Lohan’s Anna) as a magical fortune cookie allows them to temporarily swap bodies. It’s familiar territory that’s employed to predominantly entertaining effect by Waters, as the filmmaker, armed with a script by Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon, delivers a briskly-paced comedy that’s been suffused with amusing, laugh-out-loud funny interludes and a series of exceedingly agreeable performances – with, in terms of the latter, the picture benefiting substantially from the top-tier work of its two stars. (Lohan is quite good here, to be sure, and yet it’s clear that Curtis’ go-for-broke, frequently hilarious turn remains a highlight within the proceedings.) There’s little doubt, as well, that Freaky Friday‘s overall impact is heightened by Waters’ handling of certain elements that could (and should) have been substandard, with this especially true of a  subplot detailing Anna’s crush on a rebellious fellow student (Chad Michael Murray’s Jake) that doesn’t quite go where one might’ve initially anticipated, and the picture ultimately does build toward a satisfying climax that ensures it concludes on a seriously positive note (and it’s impossible not to love that capper) – which does, in the end, cement the picture’s place as a better-than-average remake that exploits its high-concept premise to a persistently watchable degree.

*** out of ****