Review: Freaky Friday (1976) (DMC #61)
It’s Friday and things are about to get freaky! Last night we watched the original Freaky Friday from 1976 starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster. It marks the sixty-first film in our Disnerd Movie Challenge! If, like us, you never saw this one before, we’ve got the synopsis below. Otherwise skip ahead to our review.
Synopsis
On Friday the 13th, teen Annabel wakes up to what she assumes will be a normal Friday with her annoyingly tidy little brother Ben, her all-business father Bill, and her mom Ellen, who always seems to be nagging Annabel about something. But as Annabel complains to her friends about how her mom doesn’t understand how hard it is to be a teen and how easy her mom has it, Ellen simultaneously complains to her husband, Bill, that Annabel is the one who has it easy and doesn’t understand how hard it is to be a mother. At the exact same moment, Annabel and Ellen say “I wish I could switch places with her just for one day” and they magically switch places—Annabel’s mind in her mother’s body, and Ellen’s mind in her daughter’s body. The two quickly fall into each others’ roles. Ellen-as-Annabel heads to school with Annabel’s friends, listening to the girls talk about how their mothers couldn’t handle switching places with them for one day. Meanwhile, Bill gives Annabel-as-Ellen a laundry list of things to do before the big waterski event Bill is hosting that afternoon to try to land a major client at work. It soon becomes obvious that neither Annabel nor Ellen knows how to navigate each others’ worlds. Ellen-as-Annabel has no idea how to act on a bus, how film developing works, how to use an electric typewriter, or how to play and march in the band. Plus, she didn’t know Annabel had a term paper due today. On the other hand, Annabel-as-Ellen has no idea how to apply makeup, do laundry, or locate important things like the checkbook. She also doesn’t know which household tasks their housekeeper Mrs. Schmauss is actually responsible for, or how many household service appointments her mother scheduled all for one morning.
Annabel-as-Ellen finally has enough. She fires everyone, including the housekeeper, and calls Bill to tell him. She tries to iron Bill’s dress shirt but ends up ruining it with too much starch. Instead of doing the chores, she decides to invite her crush, Boris from across the street, over to her house to hang out. The problem is, she looks like her mom, and now it seems Boris is interested in Annabel mom, not Annabel! Meanwhile, Ellen-as-Annabel thinks she’s doing pretty well in history class until the other kids start bullying her for being a know-it-all. Then comes the field hockey game. Annabel is their star player, and the team is counting on her to help them win, but Ellen only played field hockey once as a kid, and she ends up scoring a goal for wrong team. Meanwhile, Annabel-as-Ellen walks to pick up her little brother, Ben, since she still doesn’t know how to drive. Ben confesses to Annabel-as-Ellen that he doesn’t hate Annabel, but actually admires her. He even tried to be messy to make Annabel like him. Annabel-as-Ellen has a change of heart and plays baseball with Ben and his friends.
When Annabel-as-Ellen gets home, Bill calls to tell her that she’ll be handling the buffet for this evening’s event since the previous catering plan failed. Annabel-as-Ellen tries to get out of it, but Bill insists, and she calls him a “male chauvinist pig” as she hangs up the phone. Meanwhile, Ellen-as-Annabel shows up to Bill’s office where she sees a new, attractive secretary—Bill always used to tell her when he hired a new secretary. Upon learning that Ellen-as-Annabel is Bill’s daughter, the secretary quickly dons a trench coat and glasses and pulls her hair back in an attempt to make herself look less attractive while Ellen-as-Annabel asks Bill for a credit card authorization note so she can go shopping. Meanwhile, Annabel-as-Ellen is trying to prep an elaborate turkey dinner for the event when the school principal calls to ask why she’s not at their scheduled meeting. She quickly puts Boris in charge of Ben and the meal and rushes to the school. Ellen-as-Annabel is having a much better time—she gets Annabel’s braces off, goes shopping for new clothes, gets a mani-pedi and a face mask, and then gets her hair cut. She’s just about to head home when Annabel’s friends show up and hustle her into the van to go get ready for the waterski event—Annabel is to be the star of Bill’s waterski show. Back at the school, Annabel-as-Ellen learns that her teachers actually think she’s very bright. When she arrives home, however, the turkey is completely charred, Ben is covered in chocolate, and Bill calls wanting to know why she hasn’t arrived at the waterski resort with the food.
In spite of the mess on her end, Annabel is worried that her mom will get hurt attempting to waterski. Annabel-as-Ellen tries to tell Boris she’s really Annabel but he doesn’t believe her. Boris can’t drive, so Annabel-as-Ellen is forced to attempt driving to the waterski resort with Boris and Ben. Meanwhile, Bill forces Ellen-as-Annabel to get on her skis and perform with the rest of the waterski team. With Annabel-as-Ellen attempting to drive while being chased by police, and Ellen-as-Annabel attempting to waterski, both women declare simultaneously that they wish they had their bodies back. The magic gives them their bodies back—but in the wrong places. Annabel is in her own body still driving the car, and Ellen is in her own body still trying to waterski (and putting on an impressive show for Bill and his clients even though she has no idea what she’s doing). After Annabel reaches the resort and Ellen manages to reach her, the two finally say “I love you” to each other and realize they were wrong to think the other had it easy. As they celebrate the end of their switch, the viewing platform Bill and his clients have been standing on sinks into the water. Back at the house that evening, Ellen evades Bill’s questioning about what happened on the water that day. Annabel and Boris have hit it off, and Boris seems far more interested in Annabel than her mom. He asks Annabel to go get pizza, and Annabel invites Ben to come along, too. Bill and Ben start complaining about which one of them has more fun, and despite Ellen and Annabel’s warnings that they don’t really want to switch places with each other, the two simultaneously declare “oh yes I do!”
Thoughts Before Watching
Megan: The only Freaky Friday I’ve seen is the one from 2003 starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. I really enjoyed that version, but it’s been ages since I last watched it so I don’t recall as much of the plot. I’ve never seen the original 1976 version before, so I’m hoping it holds up in the way that the original The Parent Trap did (as you may recall from our review of The Parent Trap, we’re still partial to the ‘90s remake, but the original held its own). I’m also going to risk an early prediction here that this film from 1976 will do what few films of the ‘70s have done so far: pass the Bechdel test. I mean it stars two female characters, and the film was written by Mary Rodgers (the same woman who wrote the book), so it has to pass…right?
Kevin: Like Megan, I’ve only seen the 2003 remake of this film. In fact, Disney made several other remakes of this story, both made for television (a 1995 version, which doesn’t seem to be found anywhere online, and a 2018 musical adaptation). This is one of the few films I did not realize was first originated in the ‘70s, so this particular version is completely new to me. But… wait a second… is that Jodie Foster?! *checks cast list* Oh, dang, it is Jodie Foster! The girl on the preview image looked like her, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t quite realize she had been in the business for that long. I’ve only seen a couple movies of hers, but we’ll see how this one goes.
Thoughts After Watching
Lots of antics, not enough story
Megan: I know some people might think it’s not fair to compare this film from the ‘70’s to the 2003 version, but honestly, having seen the 2003 version first, it’s hard not to. Audiences never view films in a vacuum—they’re always viewed within context of other films and what’s happening in the world. The same is true for us. So with that said, I must admit I was disappointed by this 1976 version. I guess I was expecting a bit more from the source material that gave us the 2003 Freaky Friday. Perhaps it was the result of a novel writer making her first stride into screenplay writing? Or perhaps this is the closest adaptation to the original novel? (I haven’t read the book, so I can’t be sure on that one.) In any case, the end result is a film that’s heavy on plot (events that happen) and light on story (the emotional journey of the characters). If we’re going by the screenplay beats laid out in Save the Cat, this movie is basically one big “Fun & Games” beat with a weak “Midpoint” and ill-defined “All Is Lost” and “Dark Night of the Soul” beats. The film gets so caught up in the antics and humor of Annabel struggling to take on her mother’s responsibilities, and Ellen struggling to take on Annabel’s responsibilities, that it completely loses sight of the heart of the story—a mother and daughter learning to appreciate each other.
A big reason why the heart of the story gets lost is that unlike in the 2003 version of the film, we never see mother and daughter together once the swap has taken place. They never even so much as talk to each other over the phone. Part of what made the 2003 film so funny was we got to see mom and daughter reacting to the swap in person and freaking out together, even scolding each other for doing things that would risk one or the other’s reputation. This gradually allowed the mother/daughter relationship to grow and strengthen over the course of the film. With the 1976 Freaky Friday, we don’t get that same relational development. Honestly, we barely get a decent setup of their “normal” world before the swap takes place. Annabel, via narration, tells us more than shows us what her home life is like. This narration style works great in novels, but in this particular film, it doesn’t quite deliver. We hear Ellen and Annabel complain about each other, but we never see those problems in the characters’ interactions with each other, so it’s harder for us to be emotionally invested in either character.
Kevin: I completely agree with everything Megan said above. Frankly, I thought this version was rather boring, and it was largely because of the lack of interaction between Ellen and Annabel. We have little reason to believe that they truly empathized with each other. The irony is that this movie is clearly supposed to be about a mother and daughter developing empathy for each other, but it doesn’t do a successful job of bringing that to the audience—at least not for me. Part of empathy includes actually communicating with another person to understand their feelings on situations. While Ellen and Annabel are able to somewhat understand each other’s struggles, it seemed to me that said struggles only occurred simply because each woman was just not used to the other’s responsibilities. Anyone being thrust into situations they are unprepared for is of course going to have some issues, but unless you get insight into the feelings of someone who does normally experience that situation, can you really understand where they are coming from? Let’s look at Annabel for example. She is just a teenager. The dynamic within the home looks to be that her mother, Ellen, has always taken care of certain duties while Annabel has not really been expected to help. There isn’t anything to suggest she has to be more like Ellen while she lives under her parents’ roof, but instead that Ellen just wants her daughter to be more like her. Without any backstory to really help set up the conflict, we have no reason to believe that Annabel’s lack of more “adult” responsibilities is because she refused to help and is instead because she was never expected to. In this context, it’s a bit obvious that Annabel-as-Ellen was doomed to fail at those tasks her mother would otherwise normally do, because, ostensibly, Annabel was not taught any of those things.
Kevin: In contrast, Ellen may have been a teenager once, and had gone through school, but I think it’s fairly obvious that each generation experiences its own share of issues. This isn’t to say we can’t understand other generations, but the challenges change. Ellen-as-Annabel has trouble with field hockey and fitting in with Annabel’s friends, but that’s not shown to be because Annabel herself struggles, but because Ellen is a completely different person with her own skills and personality traits. Ellen’s different lifestyle and lack of the same experience her daughter has is what creates her struggle while she is occupying Annabel’s body. Now, none of this is to say that neither woman has any issues or struggles of their own, because they absolutely do. But what I think was sorely lacking was real, true communication throughout the film so that the two could hear each other out. As I said, part of empathy is to listen to each other describe your feelings and not just think you immediately understand the other person’s struggle just because you experienced a challenge. This is where the 2003 remake succeeded while the 1976 original failed. When Annabel and Ellen reunite at the end of the original film, we realize that this is the first time they’ve actually seen each other since the switch. They say they better understand one another, but I can’t say I truly believed it since they had no other interaction prior to this.
“Male chauvinist pig”
Megan: The father in this movie is THE WORST! I could not believe how incredibly insensitive and sexist he was (though I did appreciate Annabel-as-Ellen calling him out, if only for the audience and her younger brother to hear). He tells his wife to “show up looking beautiful” as a way to put down her suggestions on how he might improve his presentation. He doesn’t really listen to her when she expresses her frustrations with Annabel or tries to explain how much she does to run the household. Then he has the audacity to add loads of responsibilities on his wife—making sure his outfit is ready for him to wear (dry-cleaned, ironed, polished) and delivered to him in time for his event that afternoon, picking up alcohol for when his coworkers stop by the house after the event that evening, cooking “one of your little gourmet spreads” (way to belittle someone’s culinary talent…) in less than 3 hours for a 25-person buffet at his big work event because he didn’t properly communicate whose wife was supposed to be cooking it (also, how crazy is it that these men were relying on their wives to cook a huge buffet meal for their event rather than hiring professional caterers?). He even has the audacity to tell Ellen “I do my job, you do yours, right?” as he leaves her to take care of all his chores while he goes off to work. While he does repeatedly ask if Ellen is alright when she seems to be acting weird post-swap, his questions don’t seem genuine. He takes her assertions that everything is fine at face value instead of really trying to understand what’s going on because, deep down, he doesn’t want to know if something is wrong. He wants to go on believing everything is perfectly fine, so he quickly transitions into talking about his needs, adding more and more on his wife’s plate without ever stopping to truly consider what her needs might be. Annabel-as-Ellen really nails it in this exchange with Ben:
ANNABEL-AS-ELLEN: Male chauvinist pig!
BEN: Mommy, why’d you call Daddy “male chauvinist pig” just now?
ANNABEL-AS-ELLEN: Because that’s what he is.
BEN: But what is one?
ANNABEL-AS-ELLEN: A male chauvinist pig is a husband who spends three months taking bows for a big shindig he’s gonna throw, and when he blows it, he gives his wife three hours to save his skin.
BEN: Oh.
Honestly, if anyone needs to swap places for a day, I think Bill needs to try being Ellen for a day. (And then Ellen could give him a giant to-do list while she rocks it at his job.)
Bill is also a terrible father
Kevin: Not only is Bill a chauvinist pig, he’s also a crappy father. I don’t know if he quite deserves a “World’s Worst Father” award or anything, since there are certainly much worse fictional (and non-fictional) fathers, but he still does not win any points. In addition to being a terrible husband, he shows little to no real care for Annabel’s well being, particularly during the water skiing scene. I was unnerved by how uncaring Bill was when “Annabel” was trying to tell him she was not comfortable going through with the water skiing event. Of course, Bill does not realize it’s really his wife in Annabel’s body, but that’s hardly excusable, because any decent parent should realize when their child is uncomfortable with something and be able to either pull them from the situation or talk to them. Ellen-as-Annabel even goes as far as to suggest she could die, to which Bill dismissively says they can deal with that after it’s over. Finally, when it looks as if Bill may finally listen to his “daughter,” he tricks Ellen-as-Annabel into holding onto the cable and tells the driver of the boat to take off! By this point, we’ve realized how awful Bill is as a character. He has no redeeming qualities and appears to be written solely as a bumbling, chauvinistic buffoon who only cares about looking good at work. This final scene cements that, and it sucks because it could have been used as an opportunity to redeem his character. But nope, he is just as awful as ever. If he can possibly look even worse, once the second switcheroo happens and Ellen and Annabel are back in their own bodies, Bill is beside himself when he sees Ellen herself participating. I presume this may have been meant to imply he was nervous because Ellen can’t water ski while his daughter can, but his worries feel completely hollow after his treatment of Annabel. Ultimately, Ellen’s antics amuse Bill’s prospective clients so much that he secures their business. When also considering how he’s treated Ellen (and Ellen-as-Annabel), it sucks that wins were given to a man who has done nothing to earn any of it.
Small strides for women
Megan: Thankfully, as predicted, this film does indeed pass the Bechdel test. Though the number of female-to-female conversations between named characters are still fewer than I’d like, we do get a much wider range than we’ve seen with many of the past films. We have Annabel and Ellen talking to each other at the beginning and end of the film, Annabel and Ellen-as-Annabel talking to Annabel’s group of female friends at various points during the school day, and Annabel-as-Ellen talking to the housekeeper Mrs. Schmauss. In all these scenarios, the bulk of the conversation is about something other than a man. The girls at school talk about school concerns and their mothers; Annabel-as-Ellen and the housekeeper talk about Annabel and their own needs and priorities (and also Ben); Annabel and her mother talk about Ellen’s day, and ultimately their love and appreciation for each other.
Megan: While this is one of the few films we’ve seen in this challenge that tells a story from a female perspective, it is still pretty clear that the characters in this story are living within a sexist, patriarchal world. For one thing, Annabel, an athlete, is still pressured by her mother to make herself look more feminine with dresses and a different hairstyle (changes that Ellen forces on Annabel after they’ve swapped bodies). Bill, as we’ve already covered, stands completely unchallenged in his male privilege as he forces his demands onto his wife and daughter. Though the female coaches of the girls’ field hockey teams use aggressive, war-like language (“Kill, kill, kill!”) to motivate their teams before the big game, we don’t get to see that same female dominance anywhere else within this world. It would seem women are only allowed to hold power within all-female realms, or in female-to-female relationships (as when Ellen-as-Annabel is able to make Bill’s secretary cover up simply by announcing that she’s Bill’s daughter). The only time a woman is “allowed” to have power over a man is when that man is still a boy, like Ben or even teenage Boris. Despite how much Ellen and Annabel do to help save Bill’s massive project, they are never recognized or appreciated for it. Bill gets all the credit, and neither Annabel nor Ellen has power over him. I can only hope that this film inspired some tough conversations about the roles of men and women after audiences left the movie theater.
How does this wish work?
Kevin: Like a few other reviews before, this is just another minor point. Honestly, though, it’s one that has bugged me enough to write a small paragraph about it. Just how, exactly, does the whole switcheroo thing work in this film? With the 2003 remake, I appreciate that they provided some explanation (although it’s arguably a stereotypical representation, but we’ll get to that when we review that movie). In the original version, Ellen and Annabel switch bodies by making the same wish aloud in perfect synchronization. I don’t need every detail explained to me, but I was left wondering why this happened, particularly because I wanted to know if the nature of this spell could work at any given time. Does the wish have a proximity limit? Does the wish only work if two very specific people wish to exchange places with each other? Could two random strangers of completely different social backgrounds in completely different areas of the world somehow switch places should they make a wish at the very same moment? In the universe this film establishes, it appears that the wish can happen at any time provided it happens at the right time. It was just a bit too convenient for me, so, again, I liked that the 2003 version made an attempt to have this part of the story make sense.
