“FREAKIER Friday” is funny. I’m not sure, though, if it’s funnier than “Freaky Friday” since I don’t remember the previous installment anymore. But I was laughing like a hyena while watching some “Freakier” scenes, complete with happy tears running down my face.
Or perhaps it was just me. I was already feeling good even before watching the movie, with the joy quotient way up there, making it easy to laugh? I hope I’ll always have that joie de vivre, and not only when I’m watching funny movies.
Obviously I’m the kind who has mababaw ang kaligayahan.
It does not necessarily follow that I also have mababaw ang kalungkutan. Oh. Perish the thought. Thus, the diet and exercise to help me banish the doom and gloom to Siberia.
The “Freaky” and “Freakier” movies are about exchanging gifts, er, switching bodies. Say, imagine Vice President Sara Duterte as First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and vice versa.
So, there’s the First Lady punching a Davao City Regional Trial Court sheriff while VP Duterte is living in Malacañang with PBBM.
Or the First Lady’s impeachment case is being debated on at the Senate while VP Duterte is the subject of gossip after a member of her entourage dies in Los Angeles, USA due to cocaine overdose.
And these impossible events have become possible because the First Lady has VP Duterte’s face and body, and vice versa. And only they and whoever has made it possible, know about the swap.
That’s how freaky a “Freaky” script could get.
“Freaky” had only two characters swapping bodies: Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her daughter Anna (Lindsay Lohan).
“Freakier” upped the ante by adding two other characters: Anna’s daughter Harper (Julia Butters), and Anna’s future stepdaughter Lily (Sophia Hammons) care of Anna’s fiance Eric (Filipino-Canadian actor Manny Jacinto).
Yes, Eric is Pinoy. Since Lily is now inhabiting Tess, the former looked awkward while saying, “Mano po, Lola,” to her Pinoy grandmother who promptly corrects her that it’s an expression of respect for people older than them, not knowing that it’s actually Lily and not Tess.
Confusing, eh?
A teenage Lily living as senior-citizen Tess produced the funniest scenes. Lily doesn’t have arthritis, Tess has. Lily doesn’t have wrinkles, Tess has. Lily is a fashionista, Tess prefers the usual clothes old women wear. Talk of generation gap.
And now you know why this movie made me laugh so hard: Because I’m Tess.
I and my batchmates have reached that age. We’re no longer spring chickens. No more spring in our step. Spring — that is, if there’s spring in Pinas — will only add more allergies to the current collection.
And it’s not only the chicken. We have turkey necks, crow’s feet on the outer corners of our eyes, bat wings.
There’s the food reference, too: cottage cheese thighs, crepey upper arm skin.
Plus under-eye wrinkles, smile lines, forehead wrinkles, wrinkly tummy, and breasts that have surrendered to gravity.
Only a few of us can still dare to wear sleeveless tops and two-piece bikinis.
I didn’t wear a two-piece bikini when I was the age of Anna and Lily. The more I won’t be wearing it now that I’m Tess.
Today happens to be Friday. Will it be freaky or freakier? Let’s ask Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer), the one who made the swap possible in “Freakier.”
