Have you ever wondered what would happen if you woke up to find you
were a teenager again? I expect we all have. (For some of us, yes, it's
an excruciating nightmare, but I suspect revisiting school and
ohmigod-I-used-to-wear-THAT hysteria would be a laugh for others, yes?)
However, I expect the majority would cower in fear if we were to find
we'd miraculously gone forward in time...to find ourselves a good few
years older.
Which is what happens to thirteen-year-old Jenna in this 2004 romantic comedy. Ohhh Lordy...
Dorky Jenna (Jennifer Garner) is 13, and after being constantly teased by girls at school, wishes she was older. After playing a party game and getting locked in a closet by her cruel peers, Jenna awakens to discover that she's not herself anymore. Gone are her childlike looks, and even her home...in fact, she's woken up in a very nice Manhattan apartment that just so happens to be her own.
Yep, Jenna has left the eighties behind and is now a successful, highly attractive 30-year-old who works on a glossy magazine. What's more, she seems to have a very handsome hockey-player boyfriend who she finds in her shower.
Not knowing what's happened, Jenna realises that she has to live her life as an adult - though still being a gum-chewing, music loving 13-year-old inside. Things become difficult at work, especially when her school 'friend' is out to bag a promotion that Jenna's also in line for. Jenna's teenage admirer, Matt (Mark Ruffalo), is also back in her life - but sadly, he's engaged.
Jenna has no idea what happened in the previous years, and how she ended up as she did. And so Jenna has to love her life as a thirty-something, trying to piece together what happened in her life since that day in the 1980s, as well as deal with her love life, career and other adult things that she had not even considered before.
For those who loved Big and Freaky Friday, this is a fantastic movie that's both hilarious and refreshing at the same time. Jennifer Garner plays adult Jenna brilliantly, Definitely worth a watch (but thank goodness it's only fiction...)
Friday Flick archives.
