Ben O 'Shea - Freakier Friday: So Stoked For Her

Ben O’Shea dropped in to chat about the sequel to the classic body swap movie - Freakier Friday. He reckoned it was awesome, with both Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan delivering standout performances. This time around, Lindsay’s character had a child, and her parenting struggles mirrored Jamie Lee’s role from the original. The film featured a four-way body swap and multiple callbacks to the original, from old boyfriends to bands, all handled with care that long-time fans would appreciate. And what did Ben rate it? You’ll have to tune in to find out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great per flick with ben o'sheel. Like, there's been a
run of sequels getting really like further and further apart
lately ben O'Shea, and this is one of them. Twenty
two years in the making.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, that's right. Freaky a Friday a sequel to long
awaited sequel to Freaky Friday. A classic for people of
a certain age. I think the probably elder millennials now,
people around that age, maybe like twenty five to thirty
five are probably in the sweet spot. Yeah, of people
who watched the original in two thousand and three. I
think it was with the amazing Jamie Lee Curtis, who's

(00:39):
just an absolute queen, and of course Lindsay Lohan, a
very young Lindsay Lohan. It's a classic body swap movie
where the mum and daughter don't see I do I.
Jamie Lee Curtis's character is this psychologist who always is
trying to, you know, sort of get her daughter to
be more mindful and thoughtful. Lindsay Lohan played the sort
of the young rocker, you know, we sort of want

(01:00):
to be rock band, didn't listen to her mum, didn't
think she had to be respectful, and then they have
a fortune Cookie situation. They swap bodies and they learned
to you know, walk a mile in the other's shoes.
Disney film. It was actually a remake of an earlier
Disney movie in nineteen ninety five that starred Shelley Long
Freaky Friday Terrible straight to TV. Oh, and the original

(01:25):
movie was in the seventies, was based on a book
that was, you know, classic books written back in the day.
And so now along comes this sequels twenty odd years later.
It follows along from you know, Top Gun, Maverick Beetlejuice Too.
There's been a bunch of these delayed sequels. Happy Gilmore
two was the one we just had recently, and they've

(01:45):
all been, at best pretty average. Happy Gilmore Too was terrible.
It was an absolute stinker. And so I went into
Freaky of Friday thinking, oh, you know, I don't know
how good this is going to be. It's nostalgia. I
get it, I get the appeal, but it's actually awesome.
It's actually really good. It's so hard to do a

(02:06):
film like this where it's so you know, past its prime,
well delayed. But Jamie Lee Curtis is amazing, of course,
and she's still amazing Lindsay Lohan. She's fully back.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
She has had the most full circle, full circle moment,
and I'm really happy for it. She's living a great.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
So stoked for it. Like and she made that really
horrible Christmas movie that came out on Netflix and that
was the other time, and that was that was sort
of her comeback movie. And I watched that, I thought,
I don't know if that is a comeback. I'm not
really sure if is going to get all the way back.
But this movie proves that she's ready for her leading roles.
So scripts she looks fantastic and so in this film,

(02:51):
it kind of follows the formula of the first one.
You've Got Jamie Lee Curtis is now a grandmar because
Lindsay Lohan has a daughter of her own. She's a
single mum having very similar sort of problems parenting as
Jamie Lee Curtis's character did in the first film. A
daughter that doesn't really listen headstrong. This daughter named Harper,

(03:12):
wants to be a surfer, doesn't really care about school,
certainly doesn't care about listening to her mum. And meanwhile,
the daughter is also having some dramas with a girl
at school, this British girl who's so cool, everyone loves us.
They're sort of frenemies, I guess. And then things become
more complicated when the British girl's dad played by Manny Jacinto,
who people might remember as Jason Mendoza from The Good Place,

(03:34):
who sort of, you know, sort of a British teacher,
falls in love with Lindsay Lohan's Anna, and then they
get they're going to get married, and then it creates
this sort of four way dilemma with Jamie Lee Curtis
and Lindsay Lohan and the two young actresses four way
body swap oh no, which it is Free Freakia. We

(03:57):
Initially it's actually quite hard to follow because you forget
who is supposed to be here. Jamie Lee Curtis goes
into the teenage British girl and vice versa, and Lindsay
Lohan and her daughter swap. So that bit is pretty straightforward,
quite of similar to the first movie. The other aspect
of it is a little harder to get your head around,
but you know, Jamie Lee Curtis can make anything worse,

(04:20):
and so then you've got multiple times during the film
where there's callbacks to the original. So Lindsay Lohan's boyfriend
from the original, Jake, he's kind of in there. He
comes makes an appearance, Chad Michael Murray, Chad Michaus Murray.
There's a great Britney Britney Spears scene that we saw
in the original movie. There's a callback to that, the

(04:43):
pink slip, Lindsay Lohan's band. You know, there's a lot
going on in this film, and fans of the original,
I think we really appreciate the care that they took
to bring that nostalgia to life again, but in a
way that offers something new, and I think that's what's
that's what works about this film because so often, in
the case of Beatle Just Too or Happy Gilmore Too,

(05:04):
all they do is just recycle the same jokes. Yeah,
and there's nothing new, and you go, it's it was
funny the first time around, but it just kind of
feels like you're exploiting, you know, my love of the
original comercial gain, whereas this one they actually tried to
give us something new material and a few twists on
some of those nostalgic moments where you go, you know what,

(05:25):
that's actually pretty clever that's cool. And so in the end,
you know, I think this is a film that fans
of the original will really dig. And I think it's
you know, you could take you could take your kids
long to see it, and the fans of the original
will also love. It's a family film. There's a lot
of laughs in it too, unlike Happig Gilmore Too, which
didn't have any laughs at all. But yeah, so at

(05:46):
the start of this year, you know, I circled both
of these films on the calendar, and Okay, Happy Gilmore
two is going to be massive. Freaky of Friday for
the fans of that original film is going to be massive.
But I thought there was no chance at all that
Freaky of Friday was going to be the better. Okay,
in a Millionaeres would have thought that, But it's not
even close. You are talking up mate? Is this because
you saw Brideheart last week? That's I would I would

(06:10):
actually recommend that to any studio. Make our film critics
watch Brideheart first. Any other movie, any other movie is
going to be just incredible in comparison.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
All right, Well, how many Lindsay Loans had more Freaky
Fridays than we've had? Good to see her doing well.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Are you giving it? What do you recommend? I'm just
thinking about some of Lindsay Lohan's freaky Fridays. It was
a couple of decades, wasn't Oh my gosh, but no,
it's so fantastic to see her back in action. Three
and a half. Oh, very good. Better than point five.