I — like all millennials — root for no one more than I root for Lindsay Lohan. We were all there together, on the ground floor, as she perfected the “switch” comedy; first as twins Annie and Hallie in Nancy Meyers’ “The Parent Trap” remake, then later with Jamie Lee Curtis‘ soul in the “Freaky Friday” remake, and when she cosplayed as a cool kid in “Mean Girls.” She grew up with us, and we stuck with her through the personal life rollercoaster. We got it, after all. We were all going through our own pitfalls — we just didn’t have the paparazzi snapping shots of life’s worst moments.
Even those of us who bemoan straight-to-streaming releases supported her Netflix comedy comebacks. The platform should know, too, that we 100% would’ve been there, lined up at the movie theater, to support both films with generous box office returns. The millennial generation does not agree on everything. We are actually quite divided on other topics — like preferred boy bands, Ross on “Friends,” superheroes, and Katy Perry’s recent output — but we are in agreement about one thing: Lohan.
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“Freakier Friday,” therefore, is the most important theatrical release for millennials this year. I heard — and I do accept — David Ehrlich’s argument about “The Naked Gun.” There is a reason, after all, that we at IndieWire have made sure you know about and are prepared to support that fantastic comedy at the cinema. But — hear me out — the “Freaky Friday” sequel is a big deal.
First of all, none other the Instagram queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis, made sure that the movie was shot in Los Angeles. She told Deadline last month, “The movie is a love letter to Los Angeles and the original movie was a love to Los Angeles. We shot in the original house and we shot all over the city of Los Angeles.” Therefore, in the day in age where productions often run to tax credits in other states and countries, “Freakier Friday” is doing the work by keeping Hollywood alive. And they did that before this summer’s big $750 million win in the California state legislature. The trailer has a glimpse of several beloved local locales, including my favorite vinyl shop, The Record Parlour.
Secondly, while it is another sequel or reboot, it is a property that the fans willed into existence. For years and years and years fans hounded Curtis and Lohan about the potential for a continuation, and that hullabaloo spoke it into existence. And unlike Disney’s “Hocus Pocus 2,” this one actually is getting the chance to prove its performance in theaters.
And thirdly, and most importantly, this press tour has given all us millennials the opportunity to bask in our girl Lohan. She, after all, most represents my generation now in this phase of her life. While those boomers and Gen Xers put us down for our incompetence and immaturity for the better part of a decade, now we millennials are the ones that have it all together. And we represent a more emphatic culture, I would like to think, that runs counter with much of what was ugly in the tabloid-laden ’00s and what is ugly in today’s divisive times. We are out here providing hope in the form of an intergenerational comedy like “Freakier Friday” — I mean, literally bringing the generations together and swapping them all around.
We just needed our time, as Lohan did. “I was losing that feeling of excitement about doing a film, and I wanted to live my own life for a bit, figure out how to have a more private life, a real life,” she told The Times. “I wanted to wait to get that itch again.”
In the same interview, Lohan also offers hope to us IndieWire-loving, Letterboxd-using movie lovers, speaking to exactly what is missing in today’s film landscape, “I miss films that are stories, like ‘All About Eve’ or ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s.’ There are not many major movies I want to go and see that are like that — there’s a gap and I’m craving to do work like that.”
Next weekend — on August 8 to be exact — the put-upon millennial generation has the chance to prove our buying-power worth, supporting a movie that isn’t just another piece of run-of-the-mill nostalgia bait, but the kind of midlevel-budget studio comedy with appealing stars we want to see. And in supporting Lohan — our most universal representative — we might actually, even if inadvertently, get the fun, original content we’ve been waiting.
Go reserve your tickets now, kids.
