Tag: Nisha Ganatra

FREAKIER FRIDAY – Review

(L-R) Jamie Lee Curtis as Tess Coleman and Lindsay Lohan as Anna Coleman in Disney’s live-action FREAKIER FRIDAY. Photo by Glen Wilson © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Long after Disney’s FREAKY FRIDAY hit screens, the House of Mouse is back with a sequel. FREAKIER FRIDAY. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back but this time it’s a double switch. Fans of the original should enjoy this new switcheroo, with plenty of teen in the adult body and adult in the teen body farce humor and ample jokes, and a nice performances from the stars of the first one. Even if you aren’t particularly fan of the first one, Jamie Lee Curtis brings a lot of goofy humor to deliver some smiles, aided by a script that keeps things fun without going too absurd with the already absurd premise.

A quick recap: in the original, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan played a battling mother and teen-aged daughter who magically switch bodies, letting each see other’s point-of-view by walking around in the other’s shoes – quite literally. In Disney’s new fantasy comedy sequel, Curtis and Lohan are back as mother-and-daughter duo, Tess and Anna Coleman, but it is the teen-aged daughter of the now-grown Anna (Lohan) who is causing trouble. Anna is planning to marry hot British chef Eric Reyes (Manny Jacinto) but daughter Harper (Julia Butters) is rebelling because 1) the couple plan to relocate the family to Britain, and 2) Harper’s school enemy is Eric’s snooty daughter Lily (Sophia Hammons. The prospect of both having her hated rival as a stepsister and being isolated from Southern California and surfing in not-so-jolly old London is just too much for Harper. Harper and Lily, who agree that they don’t want to be sisters but disagree about the plan to move to London, come together to take action. At a pre-wedding party, the girls encounter a psychic, Madame Jen (a funny Vanessa Bayer) with a million side hustles, who agrees to help, but instead weaves her magic to pull another body switcheroo, without telling them and leaving them with a cryptic phrase, about reaching peace (or at least agreement), in order to switch back.

Silly comedy ensues, with director Nisha Ganatra keeping things moving along, and scriptwriter Jordan Weiss supplying plenty of jokes. The sequel is less messaging about understanding between generations, and more focused on just plain fun and silliness. The humor is mostly farcical and slapstick, with the young pair in the older bodies and adults in the younger bodies as parallel comedy shows. The 15-year-olds are horrified to find themselves in “old bodies,” with wrinkles and sags, particularly fashion-obsessed, would-be designer Lily, who is now in Curtis’ Grandma Tess’ body. The girls have to deal with knees that don’t work, and with Anna’s job obligation’s as manager of pop star Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who is enduring a painful romantic break-up as she it launching a new album. On the other hand, it’s not all bad since the teens can now do adult things, like order drinks and drive – at least when they are out of sight of the adults who are now in their teen bodies.

Likewise, Anna and Tess have a little fun, eating forbidden treats without digestive payback pain, and falling without breaking anything, while trying to keep track of the newly-liberated teens, as they try to damage control while figuring out how to get things back to normal.

Jamie Lee Curtis pretty much makes this film, milking all that silly stuff like the pro she is. Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are the best part of the film, and have fun with it all, with Curtis chewing scenery with abandon (and stay for the outtakes at the end for more of that). Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons do fine too, handling their silly stuff and teen drama and tantrums well. Manny Jacinto as fiance Eric and Mark Harmon as Tess’ husband have little to do, but Vanessa Bayer adds a few extra laughs as the goofy psychic with multiple jobs pops up unexpectedly from time to time. The only side plot that falls a bit flat is the one about broken-hearted pop star Ella, as Ramakrishnan is rather unconvincing as a pop princess, although the side story gives Lohan a little chance to rock out.

Overall, FREAKIER FRIDAY is a somewhat funny, generally painless sequel to the 2003 Disney original, a sequel whose greatest comic asset is Jamie Lee Curtis. The audience who will enjoy this sequel to most are fans of the original, but Jamie Lee Curtis makes it a bit fun for anyone.

FREAKIER FRIDAY opens in theaters on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025.

RATING: 2. out of 4 stars

LATE NIGHT – Review

Emma Thompson (foreground) and Mindy Kaling (far right) star in LATE NIGHT. Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios.

Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling star in a sort of buddy comedy about a much-lauded but out-of-touch late-night talk show host who hires a young South Asian-American chemist-turned-comedy writer to turn around her sagging ratings, in director Nisha Ganatra’s LATE NIGHT. Yeah, it’s silly but it is surprisingly fun as Thompson and Kaling explore topics ranging from toxic workplaces, sexism, diversity, cut-throat television competition to what makes comedy work, all with dash of inspiration and warmth

The film opens with Thompson’s Katherine Newbury accepting yet another award for her long-career as the first woman to host a late night talk show. Katherine’s show features guests such as Doris Kearns Goodwin and an opening monologue but over the years she has fallen into routine and complacency. With all her awards, the last thing she expects is for the network’s new female CEO to tell her she is being replaced.

Shocked into action, Katherine turns to her writing staff and suddenly notices it is all men. In an effort to add a woman’s voice, she hires the first one through the door – Molly (Kaling), a South Asian-American chemist trying to break into comedy writing.

As soon as newbie Molly shows up in the all-male, all-white writers room, they assume she’s there to fetch coffee. “I wish I was a woman of color so I could get hired with zero qualification,” whines one of the writers, in a fit of white male privilege. But while Molly may have little experience, she brings a ton of brains and fresh ideas to the stale writers’ room.

Mindy Kaling really makes this work. Of course, Kaling certainly knows something about being a woman writer in the male-dominated comedy field, as well as working in television. She works in bits about clueless bosses, slams at diversity hires, and a host of other timely topics. Not every bit works but there are enough of them to garner laughs of enough to keep the movie bouncing along.

While Kaling does her fish-out-of-water comedy, Thompson mines the film’s more dramatic side. Thompson’s character is a comedian who seems to have lost her sense of humor. As charming as she seems in public, she is pretty callous to her staff. She is a self-absorbed boss from hell dressed in designer clothes (a little echo from “The Devil Wears Prada”) but Thompson makes her more than that. Thompson does sport some flashy fashions and footwear as she terrorizes her staff. After years of ignoring her writers, she shows up at their meeting demanding material that is timely and funny. Not wanting to bother to learning their names, she gives them numbers instead.

Meanwhile Thompson explores other topics with her character, an ambitious driven woman who forgo having a family for her career. She lives only for her career – and for her husband Walter (John Lithgow), a respected academic now in poor health. The film explores the complications in her long marriage, with warm, well-drawn performances from both Lithgow and Thompson.

Kaling’s character faces a daunting workplace where women are not welcome – much less one of color. She is not only expected to get the coffee but finds the all-male writing team even use the women’s bathroom. She doesn’t even get a chair at the writer’s table and has only a corner of a desk. Still, she gets organized and gets to work on jokes for the monologue

There is potential for some pointed political humor here but Kaling takes a softer approach, making some points but backing off from anything truly biting. Kaling makes up for that with warmth and the kind of bonding scenes between her and Thompson, in a female version of a bromance (sis-mance? womance?). They start out not liking but needing each other, and winding up more like mentor-protege, even friends.

Kaling and Thompson are good in their scenes together, although their characters are often on dual tracks. The more affecting scenes are between Thompson and Lithgow as the long-married couple, working through a rough patch. Kaling bounces her comedy off the fellow writers, landing some good barbs.

LATE NIGHT’s two-track approach – comedic and dramatic – to exploring the challenges women face in the workplace doesn’t always work but it works often enough to make the film funny and thought-provoking most of the time. Which is pretty good.

LATE NIGHT opens Friday, June 14 at the Hi-Pointe Theater, Plaza Frontenac Cinema, and other area theaters.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars