Freaky Friday is a great movie! Although it comes across as a chick flick, anyone who has ever had trouble dealing with their parent or child can relate to it. Isn't that everyone? Freaky Friday is both funny and touching.
Jamie Lee Curtis plays a career mother of two. She has a teenage daughter and a young son. She is about to remarry after the death of her husband. Her daughter is a bit rebellious and they of course butt heads. Due to a fortune cookie miracle, they switch bodies.
For one day, this mother and daughter learn more about each other than most of us will learn in a lifetime. The mom, in the body of her daughter, goes to high school where she learns that things are not as easy for her daughter as she assumed. The daughter, in the body of her mom, goes to work and deals with her fiancé. She keeps faking a cold sore so she doesn't have to kiss him.
The son gets freaked out by both. His once tormenting sister now calls him honey and treats him nicely. His once loving mom now calls him punk.
The setup leads to many funny situations. The daughter, in mom's body, gets put on a television show where she has to promote her Mom's book that she can't even pronounce the name of. The mom, in her daughter's body, gets stuck on a stage at a concert where she is expected to play a guitar.
Although this movie is quite funny, it is the sentimentality that gives it so much heart. During this day, mother and daughter learn to respect each other. However, this whole odd arrangement takes a toll on mom's fiancé. In a sweet, tearful toast, the daughter, in mom's body, gives an emotional speech to help smooth things out. Only the coldest of people won't be moved by it.
When she filmed this movie, Jamie Lee Curtis had a daughter and son almost exactly the same age as her on-screen children. Perhaps that is why she walks through this movie so utterly naturally. She appears to be having the time of her life in this movie. She goes through many ranges of emotions. I know that the Academy rarely looks at films like this for award nominations, but Curtis does such a great job here that it is her performance that will stay with you longer than anything else in the movie.
Curtis is a great comedian! Look at her work in Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda. Watch her now classic transformation scene in True Lies. Curtis is one talented screen comic. In Freaky Friday she carries this film and it is definitely her best role ever.
