Senior Year is a comedy film directed by Alex Hardcastle. The screenplay is written by Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli, and Brandon Scott Jones and the movie stars Rebel Wilson, Sam Richardson, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland and Justin Hartley. The movie revolves around the Harding High cheer captain, Stephanie Conway who fell into coma after falling from a cheer stunt. She woke up 20 years later and decided to attend high school again.
Now streaming on Netflix.
Senior Year- Movie Review
Although Senior Year is a comedy film packed with jokes, fun cheerleading stunts and a great cast, there is actually very little to like in this film. The comedy portion did not quite hit the mark, and this is quite obvious when a movie had to resort to stale sexual jokes. The part where a 37-year-old makes raunchy sex jokes to a bunch of teens makes for an awkward yet cringe moment.
It seems like the movie tried to rely on the casting of Rebel Wilson as a comic relief, but that did not seem to work out. With the amount of talent in the cast, the film’s characters doesn’t seem to even give the cast the bandwidth to do the characters justice. Rebel Wilson’s portrayal of 37-year-old Stephanie Conway is not believable in the least. The character doesn’t act like a 17 year old (where her headspace should be), nor does she act like an actual 37-year-old. Meanwhile, Justin Hartley resorted to playing a sex-driven man with the same expressions.
The plot and premise is not that special either. Stephanie wakes up from her coma and realized that there has been a massive cultural shift in schools after 20 years. The cheer captain with the best dance routine is no longer the popular girl anymore. In fact, anyone can be popular as long as they can build a social following. It’s also the era of inclusivity, where everyone can be proud of who they are. However, when trying to portray this, diversity of all levels are shoved into the screen, and worse of all, these characters still play to old societal stereotypes.
There were also a bunch of questionable parts in the plot of Senior Year. Not long after the movie was released on Netflix, people started pointing out how Tiffany was never charged for attempted murder. She said her superficial sorry and everything is left as it is. Not to mention, Stephanie could go home immediately after waking up from 20 years of coma. Her behaviour was erratic, and none of her responsible friends nor caring parents thought of sending her to therapy. Instead, they thought that bringing her back to school might be a good idea. Also, the ending, like any other rom-com, is extremely predictable. The good part at least, is that the movie didn’t present itself as a really smart one in the first place.
Verdict
3/ 10
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