Why is it that when mainstream Hollywood wants to show rebellious teenage girls, they are always in punk bands? Jamie Leigh Curtis in Freaky Friday would have been a prime age for punk the first time round, and now her daughter idolises the Ramones. Philip French in his review of this version of Freaky Friday said he thought it would make a decent double bill with thirteen (except that with the solvent abuse in thirteen only over eighteen’s could see it). The question is what order would you show them. The harrowing but vaguely hopeful thirteen first, or the ridiculously unreal teens and parents in this Disney production.
Mobile phones are used as a signifier for overly busy, neglectful people in both films by the way. Though JLC having three separate mobile phones does seem to misunderstand the way technology works. Plus ca change for Hollywood, the only place after all where you can continue enhancing and zooming into digital photos until one assumes you get to the atomic level.