Freaky Friday
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Freaky Friday is a classic comedic children’s novel written by Mary Rodgers first published in the USA in 1972.
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[edit] Plot
A willful, disorganized teenage girl, Annabel Andrews, awakens one Friday morning to find herself in the body of her mother, with her own body missing, having apparently left before she woke up.
Suddenly in charge of taking care of the family’s affairs and her younger brother Ben (whom Annabel has not-so-affectionately nicknamed ‘Ape Face’), and growing increasingly worried about the disappearance of ‘Annabel’, she enlists the help of her neighbor and childhood friend Boris (or is it Morris?), though without telling him about her identity cris.
As the day wears on and Annabel has a series of increasingly bizarre and frustrating misadventures, she becomes gradually more appreciative of how difficult her mother’s life is, and learns, to her surprise, that Ben idolizes her, and Boris is actually named Morris, but has a problem with chronic congestion (at least around Annabel) leading him to nasally pronounce ms and ns as bs and ds. The novel races towards its climax and Ben also disappears, apparently having gone off with a pretty girl whom Boris did not recognize, but Ben appeared to trust without hesitation.
In the climax and dénouement, Annabel becomes overwhelmed by the difficulties of her situation, loss of the children, and the question of how her odd situation came about and when/whether it will be resolved. Finally, it transpires that Annabel’s mother herself caused them to switch bodies through some unspecified means, and the mysterious girl who took Ben was Mrs. Andrews in Annabel’s body (to which she is restored) made much more attractive by a makeover Mrs. Andrews gave the body while using it, including the removal of Annabel’s braces, an appointment Annabel had forgotten about (and would have missed, had she been the one in her body that day).
The book (and especially the film adaptations and its second sequel, Summer Switch) might be considered a modern retelling of Vice Versa, the 1882 novel by F. Anstey, in which the protagonists are a father and son.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Annabel Andrews
Disorganized, (perhaps even slovenly) rebellious and something of a tomboy, Annabel is a fairly typical teenage girl who believes that adults have it easy and quickly finds herself out of her depth when faced with real adult responsibilities and problems.
[edit] Ben Andrews, a.k.a. Ape Face
A typical pre-adolescent younger sibling, he delights in creating conflict with Annabel, torturing her and generally driving her crazy, which has led to her nicknaming him Ape Face. Unbeknownst to Annabel, he and his friends think she is the epitome of cool, and he wears the nickname as a badge of honor. The truth comes out when she slips up and calls him Ape Face while pretending to be Mrs. Andrews, after she apologizes he admits that he likes the name - but deperately wants to keep this secret from Annabel.
[edit] Boris/Morris
A childhood playmate of Annabel, he has been somewhat afraid of her since an incident in which she hit him in the face with a shovel. Deciding she played too rough, he and his mother have made a point of him avoiding Annabel since. He is a cheerful and not unattractive lad, and does his best to help ‘Mrs. Andrews’ (really Annabel) as she struggles through a tough day. He has some occasional breathing trouble, attributed to his adenoids and possibly an allergy to Annabel, which renders his voice nasal, making him unable to pronounce the letters m and n clearly. Because of this, Annabel has always believed his name to be Boris, when it is in fact Morris. Unfortunately, she suffers the exact opposite misunderstanding when he offers to prepare a “beetloaf” with the limited food resources available, and she believes he is going to save dinner by providing a much more sensible meatloaf.
[edit] Mrs. Andrews
Despite setting the events in motion and later ending them deus ex machina-style, she remains (along with Annabel’s body, which she has taken) an unseen character for much of the book, only revealing herself and what she has done at the end of the day.
[edit] Sequels
Two sequels followed Mary Rogers’s book, featuring some of the same characters. In A Billion for Boris, Annabel and her friend Morris/Boris discover a TV set that tunes into future broadcasts and begin betting on horse races. The book Summer Switch concerns Ben and his and Annabel’s father, Bill, who inadvertently switch bodies as both are leaving for the summer, leaving the youngster to negotiate Hollywood and Dad to deal with camp.
[edit] Film adaptations
It has been adapted three times by the Walt Disney Company into films with similar plots, the first screenplay having been written by the novel’s author.
A major difference between the novel and the movies is the presence of an outside influence switching the often-bickering mother and daughter against both their wills. Because of this, both serve as protagonists, and the films start shortly before the switch, illustrating the conflict between the two, then follow the trouble both have adjusting to their new circumstances, and the new respect and understanding they both come to have for each other before switching back. Mary Rodgers also added a hobby for Annabelle to the story, with an important competition - for which her mother lacks the skill - serving to bring the action to a climax. This addition was kept in subsequent versions, although the original hobby of waterskiing changed to diving and then rock music, and an important simultaneous event for the mother (her wedding rehearsal dinner) was added to the most recent film.
The adaptations are:
- The original 1976 version, written by Rodgers, which stars Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster.
- A Disney television version was made in 1995, starring Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffmann and Ellen and Annabelle Andrews, switched by magical amulets responding to their wish to have each other’s lives.
- Their counterparts in the 2003 remake are Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. The mother’s and daughter’s names are changed to Tess Coleman and Anna Coleman, respectively. They are switched by magical fortune cookies given to them by a meddling old Chinese woman on Thursday night after she overhears them arguing at her daughter’s restaurant. Ben is renamed Harry, the children’s father is deceased, and Tess, a somewhat stuffy psychiatrist and author, has her father staying with her as he visits in advance of her Saturday wedding to fiancé/literary agent(/publicist?) Ryan, played by Mark Harmon.
In addition, a television film of the sequel novel Summer Switch, starring Robert Klein and Scott Schwartz, was made in the 1984 as part of the ABC Afterschool Specials series.
