FREAKY FRIDAY
(three stars)
Thank God it’s “Friday.”
Running time: 96 minutes. Rated PG (mild sexuality and profanity). At Empire, the Chelsea, the Village East, others.
THE long wait for a sleeper amid this summer’s endless Hollywood dreck ends with “Freaky Friday,” a surprisingly hilarious comedy with winning performances by Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan as a mother and daughter who unwillingly switch bodies.
Expectations weren’t high for Disney’s third adaptation of Mary Rodgers’ novel, which was made into a 1976 film with Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster and a 1995 made-for-TV version with Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffman.
It didn’t augur well that Curtis was a last-minute replacement for Annette Bening, who left after a couple of weeks of shooting, at which point Mark Harmon stepped in for the departing Tom Selleck as the mom’s fiancé.
And the means by which they switch bodies in this version is a fairly cringe-inducing stereotype – a fortune cookie proffered by an aged waitress while mother Tess and daughter Anna are fighting in a Chinese restaurant.
But once that’s out of the way, the two leads have a blast. Curtis, in her first comedic role since “True Lies,” is fall-down funny as an alienated 15-year-old garage-band singer forced to inhabit her uptight mother’s body.
While she’s happy to max out mom’s credit cards for a makeover, she’s particularly mortified that the switch has taken place on the eve of her widowed mom’s marriage.
Even worse, a boy (Chad Michael Murray) Anna has a crush on suddenly develops a raging infatuation with her mother – not realizing it’s Anna inside.
Meanwhile, Anna has to bluff her way through her psychologist mother’s workday – while juggling plans for her wedding.
Lohan (“The Parent Trap”) demonstrates genuine comedy chops as the mom coping with high school and a nasty teacher (Stephen Tobolowsky) with a hidden agenda.
Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon’s script may not break any new ground, but they have an excellent ear for dialogue: Anyone who’s witnessed a battle royal between a teenage girl and her mother will wince with recognition.
Mark Waters, who directed the Sundance hit “The House of Yes” but faltered badly with “Head Over Heels,” demonstrates a crisp comic timing sorely lacking in contemporary Hollywood comedies.
Even Harmon, arguably Hollywood’s dullest leading man, manages a funny double-take when he sees his fiancée (or at least her body) riding on a motorcycle with a teenage boy.
“Freaky Friday” is Disney’s best comedy in years.