Once the switch-up occurs, the teens in adult bodies attempt to pull a reverse Parent Trap, sabotaging their parents’ impending union with some lend
Once the switch-up occurs, the teens in adult bodies attempt to pull a reverse Parent Trap, sabotaging their parents’ impending union with some lend a hand from Anna’s ex, Jake (a returning, still-Ducati-driving Chad Michael Murray). The adults in teenage bodies, meanwhile, take the opportunity to ride scooters through Downtown Los Angeles and stuff themselves with brisk food. “I haven’t had dairy since Bush was president,” quips Tess in Lily’s body.
“Comedies get a lot of flak for not being serious films, but the acting that those four actors are doing is really sophisticated,” Ganatra says. “Then directing it is confusing, because it’s eight different characters with the same four actors.”
Ganatra wanted to avoid outright imitation of Lohan and Curtis, directing the younger actors to mimic a select few physical gestures from their older counterparts. “Jamie likes to talk with her hands a lot, so you’ll notice Sophia moves her hands a lot when she becomes Jamie,” Ganatra explains. “Julia Butters did this insane thing where she would switch into doing Lindsay’s exact vocal cadence.”
Then there’s Jacinto, whom Ganatra cast largely based on her love for his performance as lovable dummy Jason on NBC’s The Good Place. “It’s so tricky what Manny pulls off, because he has to not be so out of it that he doesn’t realize something’s off—but he has to not blow up the whole movie,” she explains. “We kind of landed on [the idea] that he has to be so in love with Anna that he’s willing to overlook all these things or write them off as quirks, the way we do with red flags in a relationship.”
It all leads to an electrifying final sequence at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, where a pop star whom Anna manages (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) has a concert that must catapult all the main characters back into their original bodies. “The best choice I made was the music,” Ganatra says. “It’s Suzy Shinn, an incredible music producer and one of my inspirations for The High Note, and Sarah Aarons who wrote all the music.” Their work includes “Baby,” a moving track that Anna writes about, then performs alongside, her daughter, Harper. “The minute I heard it, it felt like a hit song that I’ve always loved and wanted to hear for the rest of my life,” Ganatra adds.
The mother-daughter duet helps facilitate the switchback. With that sorted, Lohan and her venerable band, Pink Slip—including Christina Vidal Mitchell and Haley Hudson—can celebrate by performing “Take Me Away,” a song from 2003’s Freaky Friday. There are several nods to that film in their performance, including a bit of crowd-surfing—“which always happens at book signings,” Ganatra jokes.
Unlike other long-awaited legacy sequels, such as Hocus Pocus 2 and Disenchanted, Freakier Friday premiered in theaters rather than solely on streaming—earning nearly $45 million in its opening weekend and having the biggest-ever August debut for a PG-rated movie. “I love movies so much because they’re a communal experience,” Ganatra says. “I will always go see a comedy in a theater rather than at home. Laughing in a theater with friends and strangers is what brings us closer together.”
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