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Freaky Friday (2003 film)

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Freaky Friday
File:Freaky friday post.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMark Waters
Screenplay byHeather Hach
Leslie Dixon
Produced byAndrew Gunn
Mario Iscovich
Ann Marie Sanderlin
StarringJamie Lee Curtis
Lindsay Lohan
Mark Harmon
Harold Gould
Chad Michael Murray
Stephen Tobolowsky
Christina Vidal
Ryan Malgarini
Julie Gonzalo
Edited byBruce Green
Music byRolfe Kent
Distributed byWalt Disney Pictures
Release date
  • August 6, 2003 (2003-08-06)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$20 million
Box office$160,846,332

Freaky Friday is a 2003 film based on the novel of the same name by Mary Rodgers. It stars Lindsay Lohan as Anna Coleman and Jamie Lee Curtis as her mother. In the film their bodies are switched due to an enchanted Chinese fortune cookie. It also stars actors Mark Harmon and Chad Michael Murray with Julie Gonzalo

This is the third time this film has been made by Disney, and the second in ten years. The original film was made in 1976 and starred Barbara Harris as the mother and Jodie Foster as the daughter. A 1995 television remake was produced for soon-to-be Disney subsidiary ABC.

Plot

Anna Coleman (Lindsay Lohan) is an average teenage rebel whose constant victims of her nature are her stodgy mother Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) and annoying younger brother Harry (Ryan Malgarini). Sources of irritation include a rock band Anna is in, which Tess hates, and Tess's upcoming wedding to her boyfriend Ryan (Mark Harmon), which Anna is emotionally not ready for due to her father's death three years ago. Also contributing to Anna's irritation is her archrival, Stacey Hinkhouse (Julie Gonzalo), who never seems to stop torturing her and has convinced Tess that she and Anna are still best friends, and her English teacher, Mr. Elton Bates, who gives her a "F" on every assignment, no matter how hard she tries.

When the entire family eats out in Pei-Pei's Chinese restaurant, Anna and Tess quickly start fighting again: Anna wishes to participate with the rest of her band in a band audition, however the show is the same Friday night as Tess's wedding rehearsal. Hearing the argument, Pei-Pei's mother meddles in by offering Tess and Anna both fortune cookies. Upon opening them, there is a short earthquake which only they can feel.

The next day, after the stroke of midnight, Tess wakes up and somehow discovers that she and Anna have swapped in each other's body. Confused and unable to work out on how to swap back on their own, they decide to go back to the restaurant to find out what happened. Since Anna has an important test and Tess must go to work, the two are forced into each other's roles.

At school, Tess not only realizes Anna was right about Stacey, but is also given a bad grade from Mr. Bates while he was quizzing them on Shakespeare's Hamlet, even though she got all the answers correct. She realizes that Mr. Bates was her former classmate, whom she had turned down when he had asked her to the school prom; so he is taking it out on Anna. Tess confronts Mr. Bates over this in front of Anna's friends, humiliating him. Tess warns him to stop his abusive treatment of her, or he'll be reported to the school board.

After work, with Anna primarily forced to feign her way through most of Tess's appointments, apart from a case involving a mother's concerns over her daughter, Anna gives Tess's body a makeover, including new clothes, a new haircut and an ear piercing. Then, the two go to the restaurant again and speak to Pei-Pei, the daughter of the woman that gave them the fortune cookies. Furious at her mother's meddling, but unable to directly help them, Pei-Pei advises them to read the fortunes in the cookies, as when the fortunes come true, they will swap back.

In the afternoon, Anna attends Harry's parent-teacher conference, where she reads a composition he wrote about how much Harry admires Anna, but provoked fights so that she would pay attention to him. When Tess takes Anna's test, Stacey writes a note and places it on her desk for her to read, but then makes it look like she was cheating, landing her in detention. Tess is able to finish the test later with the help of Jake, an older student that Anna had a crush on. She also gets revenge on Stacey by erasing all of the answers she had on her test paper and writing "I'M STUPID!" on it.

Meanwhile, Ryan surprises Anna with an interview on a talk show to discuss her new psychology book. She is unable to discuss the meaning of the book, which she has not read, so she improvises by turning the show into a wild romp while angering Tess, who sees the interview on TV, in the process while in the school's teacher's lounge. Afterwards, Anna sees Jake at a coffee shop and bonds with him over similar musical interests. Jake then begins to fall for Tess, when he notices all the characteristics he likes about Anna.

At the wedding rehearsal that evening, Tess and Anna, while still in each other's bodies, read the fortunes, stating that "What you see is what you lack, then selfless love will change you back," but leaves them overly confused. Anna's bandmates come to try to convince Tess to go to the audition, but ultimately decides to use force. However, the bandmates are caught by security, but Ryan surprises Tess and Anna when he gives her permission to go. He also tells Anna that he wanted her to accept him into the family on her own and that he wants Tess to go watch Anna. Seeing Ryan in a new light, Anna leaves to watch her band perform.

At the audition, Tess is unable to play the guitar solo so Anna unplugs it and plays another guitar backstage while Tess mimes along. The band does a great job, and for the first time, Tess realizes how much fun Anna has playing in her band. Back at the wedding rehearsal, Tess asks Anna to have Ryan postpone the wedding, so that Anna will not have to go through marrying him in her mother's body. Instead, Anna proposes a toast where she finally accepts Ryan by realizing how happy he makes Tess. There is a second earthquake that the whole crowd feels, plus Tess and Anna switch back into their own bodies. On the wedding day, Tess and Ryan marry, and Anna and Jake meet while dancing they share a kiss. By the end of the film, Anna shares a song named "Ultimate."

Harry and Grandpa have an argument and Pei Pei's mother shows up and offers them the cookies, but flees after seeing Pei Pei watching her; Pei Pei then tackles Harry and Grandpa to the ground and confiscates the cookies before saying "OK".

Cast

Production

The film's producer Andrew Gunn said he initially hoped Jodie Foster (who played the daughter Annabel in the original 1976 Freaky Friday film) would be interested to play the mother in the remake. Foster declined in order to spend more time with her family and because of concerns that the casting stunt would overshadow the movie's overall merit. Annette Bening was then cast in the role, but dropped out because of family obligations. Jamie Lee Curtis was given the role only four days before filming began.

Lindsay Lohan's character was originally written as a Goth, but she did not think anyone would relate to that, and decided to dress in a preppy style for her audition, and the character ended up being re-written.[1]

Marc McClure, who played Boris Harris, Annabel's love interest in the original film, has a brief cameo as Boris the delivery man. Director Mark Waters also makes a cameo holding a baby at the wedding. Also, in the end scene when Anna is dancing with Jake, there is a woman in the background dancing with an older gentleman, and she looks directly at the camera. This woman is Lindsay Lohan's mother, Dina Lohan.

Ryan Shuck coached Jamie Lee Curtis to play the guitar solo for the concert scene. Lindsay Lohan trained for one year to learn to play the guitar before production.

The snapshots in the opening credits are photos of Jamie Lee Curtis and her daughter, Annie Guest.

Post film collaborations

Curtis and Harmon reunited on his series NCIS, where Harmon portrays agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Curtis plays the recurring role of psychiatrist Samantha Ryan. Gibbs and Ryan began a romance towards the end of the series' ninth season.

Cancelled sequel

A second film was planned in 2004, having the film picked off from the first where Grandpa and Harry would have switched places but the writers realized that it would be found out way too easy for Tess and Anna, so they had planned for Ryan and Grandpa to swap places, then a third script of the film was written for Ryan and Harry to swap places, but Mark Waters would of found out in two seconds flat if they switched places, so this led to the film's cancellation but conclusions believe that there could be a reboot and have a trilogy, made by Disney once more in the near future.

Reception

Box office

In its opening weekend, the film grossed $22,203,007 million in 2,954 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #2 at the box office, behind S.W.A.T.. By the end of its run, Freaky Friday grossed $110,230,332 domestically and $50,616,000 internationally, totaling $160,846,332 worldwide.[2]

Critical reception

The film was a box office success, garnering a total of $110,222,438. The film received mostly positive reviews. It currently garners a "B" grade on Yahoo! Movies, an 88% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Jamie Lee Curtis' performance was singled out for praise by many critics. David Ansen of Newsweek noted that, "the most startling metamorphosis is Curtis's transformation from fading horror-flick queen to dazzling comedienne. She goes on a teenage tear--tormenting Anna's younger brother (who wonders why Mom's acting so weird), getting down and dirty on a TV talk show where Tess is supposed to discuss her book on aging--with fiercely funny conviction."[3] Lisa Schwarzbaum from Entertainment Weekly called her performance "glorious",[4] and A. O. Scott contended that she "does some of her best work ever [in Freaky Friday]."[5] Nick Davis described her as "so frisky and pouty and incandescent in Freaky Friday, she made the whole movie feel like something special."[6] Her performance was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Soundtrack

Main article: Freaky Friday (soundtrack)

The orchestral score was written by Rolfe Kent and orchestrated by Tony Blondal.

Awards and nominations

List awards to film and actress/actors.

Won
Nominated

References

  1. ^ Peretz, Evgenia (2006-02-01). (url is only partial article) "Confessions of a Teenage Movie Queen". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2008-09-03. As the script was written, the character was Goth, Lohan recalls: "No one could relate to the character when she was really Goth. There was nothing there." She took it upon herself to change it - before the audition. "I dressed really preppy," she says. "I wore a collared turquoise Abercrombie & Fitch shirt and khaki pants, swear to God, with a white headband. And my hair was really straight and pretty and red and blond. My agent calls and was like, 'What are you doing?!'" The studio ended up re-writing the character entirely. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help)
  2. ^ "Freaky Friday (2003)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2011-07-27.
  3. ^ Newsweek. "MOM IS TEEN FOR A DAY". Retrieved 2003-08-18.
  4. ^ Lisa Schwarzbaum (2003-07-31). "Freaky Friday (2003)". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2003-06-31. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  5. ^ A.O. Scott (2003-08-06). "FILM REVIEW; Walking in Mom's Shoes With Mom's Feet, Too". The New York Times. Retrieved 2003-08-06. [dead link‍]
  6. ^ Nick Davis. "Best Actress, 2003". Retrieved 2003. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
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