“Do you ever feel like the day hasn’t begun yet and you’re already late for everything?”

Justin’s rating: Dinky goes for younger men, pass it on

Justin’s review: While it’s not a complete unknown, 1995’s Freaky Friday is teetering on the edge of extinction three decades later. For starters, it was a Disney TV movie that didn’t get a theatrical release (like the other ones) and has never released on physical media. Then you have to factor in that it sits between the well-known Jodie Foster version and the insanely well-liked Lindsay Lohan one like a forgotten middle child.* At this point, only a few people hold a torch for this movie while select internet archival sites are the only way it’s being preserved outside of the Disney Vault.

Well, that doesn’t sit right with me. Plus, I’m always down for any body swap movie, no matter how many Carol Bradys are in it.

Our mother/daughter pairing today is Shelley Long (Troop Beverly Hills) and Gaby Hoffmann (Uncle Buck) as Ellen and Annabelle, respectively. Mom is overworked, daughter is a bit of a brat and overlooked. Actually, Annabelle is such a raging brat that I wanted her to body swap with a butt-licking mangy cat. Just for 90 minutes or so.

But no, a pair of magical amulets yanks the screaming souls out of each of their bodies and thrusts it into the other, completing a dark ritual that no doubt was a preamble to the apocalypse.** Cue people literally walking in each other’s shoes for a day and learning to empathize with their family member.

What’s really weird is that neither Ellen nor Annabelle tries to get in touch with each other after the body swap happens. You think that’d be the first thing they’d do, to coordinate if nothing else, but no, they just try to wing each other’s day and problems, which includes a diving competition and a big clothing deal.

One thing is clearly apparent about Freaky Friday from the start, which is that the look, fashion, and technology is so incredibly ’90s, but that earlier ’90s period where everything was more colorful, roller blading was the ding-dang coolest, and cell phones were super chunky and charged 75 cents a minute to use. It’s kind of caused this movie to become an unintentional time capsule of a very specific small slice of time.

As this is a Disney TV movie, there’s no surprise that this was straight-forward and schmaltzy. But that doesn’t mean that everyone here didn’t have a good time. Long in particular does a great job channeling her inner 13-year-old who can’t speak Spanish to her mom’s business partner and freaks out at her mom’s boyfriend’s advances. I was a little less sold on Hoffmann’s role, which tries too hard to be an old soul in a young kid’s body (it was funny to see how she kept trying to smoke, though).

There are a few pretty amusing sequences — including Annabelle repeatedly pulled into the principal’s office and Ellen rollerblading for transportation — but some pretty cringy ones as well, like a revolt in science class over a frog dissection. Oh, and Ellen’s boyfriend is constantly freaking out and yelling, which makes him a close second for “most hated character.”

Freaky Friday 1995 is more of a remake of Freaky Friday 1976 instead of trying to be its completely separate thing, which may have worked against it because of the inevitable comparisons. It was fine, it was entertaining, and it was nothing I was going to remember when I got back into my own body.

What? I swap bodies with Drake whenever I have to tackle schmaltzy stuff. He works that out with his therapist afterward.

*Not to mention the 2018 musical film and 2025’s Freakier Friday sequel.

**I do like that the swap happened during their carpool, featuring spontaneous screaming while other people are driving.

Intermission!

• Back when people used to walk out of their house in the morning to pick up some folded paper that told them what was going on in the news. Now we just doomscroll on our little rectangles. Progress!
• That kid is addicted to labeling
• Cell phones were 75 cents a minute back then
• Chocolate syrup on bananas is a healthy breakfast!
• Back when moms would smoke at breakfast in front of their kids
• It’s that creepy mailman from Better Off Dead!
• She’s two rungs up and having a panic attack
• “She doesn’t have CALL WAITING?”
• “This label could save his life!” “rawwwwr”
• High school is all about kids randomly spraying silly string in the hallway and trading clothes before class
• (in Spanish) “Fried things, tomorrow. Nap time, yes!”
• A rotary dial pay phone!
• Why are all these kids wearing mining lamps on their heads in science class?
• Annabelle trying to smoke in front of the principal
• She has a lot of fun on that roller ladder
• We were REALLY into elbow, wrist, and knee pads in the ’90s. And rollerblading.
• Drew Carey, Sandra Bernhard, AND Carol Kane!
• There are so many ’90s ties. VERY ’90s ties.
• “Forget it, you social terrorist!”
• “Will you not rap about a bagel?”
• “Ellen? Don’t you love me?” “Love you? I’m trying to decide if I like you!”
• Nothing like a movie where an adult woman pants a little schoolyard kid as revenge