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Actors must love to make
body-switch movies. Look at the fun Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay
Lohan have in "Freaky Friday." Each one gets to imitate the body
language and inner nature of the other, while firing salvos across
the generation gap. Body-switch plots are a license for adults to
act like kids; probably nobody has had more fun at it than Tom Hanks
did in "Big," but Curtis comes close.
The movie is a remake of the 1977 film starring Barbara Harris and
Jodie Foster, and also connects with the mid-1980s body-switch
craze, when three or four switcheroos were released more or less
simultaneously. Curtis plays Tess Coleman, a widowed psychiatrist
soon to be remarried, and Lohan is Anna, her 15-year-old daughter,
who is certainly the most clean-cut garage band guitarist in
history. There is a kid brother named Harry (Ryan Malgarini), who,
like all kid brothers, thinks his older sister is picking on him.
Anna believes Tess is remarrying with unseemly haste; she's going
through what in a Disney movie passes for a rebellious phase, and in
real life would be exemplary teenage behavior. Mother and daughter
join the future husband, Ryan (Mark Harmon), for dinner in a Chinese
restaurant, where they get into a fight. The restaurant family's
grandmother (Lucille Soong) zaps them with a fortune-cookie curse,
and the next morning when they wake up, Tess and Anna are in each
other's bodies. (There was an article not long ago about how angels
and God always seem to be played by African Americans in the movies.
Another could be written on the usefulness of movie Asian Americans,
who can always be counted on to supply magic potions, exotic
elixirs, ancient charms and handy supernatural plot points.)
Anna looks in the mirror and is shocked to see her mother's body: "I
look like the crypt keeper!" Tess oversleeps just like her daughter
always does. They go through the obligatory scene of horrified
disbelief, although, like all body-switch movie characters, they are
not simply paralyzed by astonishment and dread, but quickly decide
to lead each other's lives for a while, so that there can be a
story.
The movie, directed by Mark S. Waters and written by Heather Hach
and Leslie Dixon, delivers scenes we can anticipate, but with more
charm and wit than we expect. There is, for example, the case of
Anna's flirtation with a slightly older boy named Jake (Chad
Murray). He rides a motorcycle, so of course Tess disapproves of
him, but now Tess, in Anna's body, is inexplicably cold to the kid,
while Anna, in Tess' body, is so delighted to see him that before
long she's on the back of the bike and Jake is telling her he feels
like they really understand each other and maybe the age gap can be
overcome.
Other entertaining scenes: The mother discovers her daughter's body
has a pierced navel. The daughter buys her mother's body new clothes
and a new haircut and gets her ears pierced. Tess attends a class
Anna has been having trouble with, and realizes the teacher has been
picking on her daughter because she (the mother) turned him down for
a prom date. Everything comes down to a conflict between a rehearsal
dinner and the garage band's big chance at the House of Blues, and
when Anna, in Tess' body, makes her little speech at the dinner, we
hear the daughter's resentments: "It's great we're getting
married--even though my husband died. How quickly I've been able to
get over it!"
The outlines of body switch movies almost write themselves, although
I'd like to see what would happen with an R-rated version. The
clever writing here helps, but the actors help even more, with Lohan
and Curtis taking big physical chances. Curtis, channeling the
daughter inside her, has a hilarious scene on a talk show; she's
supposed to be a serious psychiatrist discussing her new book, but
sits cross-legged in her chair and leads the audience in routines
that seem vaguely inspired by summer camp.
Lindsay Lohan, who starred in the recycled "Parent Trap"(1998), has
that Jodie Foster sort of seriousness and intent focus beneath her
teenage persona, and Jamie Lee Curtis has always had an undercurrent
of playfulness; they're right for these roles not only because of
talent, but also because of their essential natures. We're always
sure who is occupying each body, even if sometimes they seem to
forget. Now if only their Chinese enabler doesn't run out of fortune
cookies. |
