Review of Netflix confection Senior Year

 

 

 

SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW

I love a cheerleading movie.  Bring on Bring It On!  (And all of its sequels.) (And its musical.)   And I love Rebel Wilson.  (I mean, who doesn't?)  Naturally when you cross the exuberant silliness of a cheerleading movie with the exuberant silliness of Rebel Wilson, you expect a whole lot of exuberant silliness.

So it's no surprise that Wilson's new cheerleading movie on Netflix, Senior Year, is, you guessed it, exuberantly silly.  

When Wilson's character Stephanie wakes up in 2022 after a 20 year coma that began during a pre-prom cheer routine, the movie teases the audience with maybe having something interesting to say.  It almost has a point of view about the difference between teens in 2002 and in 2022, beginning with Stephanie's friends informing her that certain slurs are no longer acceptable.  The movie then tiptoes up to the idea that today high school students are kinder to each other and care less about cliques and popularity.  (Interestingly, the defining moment of senior year for the class of 2002, 9-11, is never mentioned; nor is the defining . . . two+ years for the graduating class of 2022, the pandemic.) And then the movie flirts with the idea that those changes are just cosmetic, and while the ruling cliques may have changed, certain cliques still rule.  Then it steps back into a Britney Spears dance number and a Mean Girls-esque resolution, with everyone a little wiser and a little kinder. (Did I mention that Mean Girls was also made into a musical?)

The movie also lacks the courage of its convictions in other ways.  Early in the movie, when Stephanie wakes up, we are told in no uncertain terms that she is still a 17 year old girl in the body of a 37 year old.  This is the conceit that allows Stephanie to return to high school to complete her senior year and once again seek the prom queen crown.

But this is no Big.  At first the movie does a pretty good job with Stephanie's interactions with her friends who have aged twenty years in her absence.  They are exasperated adults who have moved past teenage concerns and have grown up lives and sensibilities.  Until they don't.  Until the boy -- now man -- who had a crush on her in high school starts dating her.  Um, eww . . . The movie never addresses the grossness of having a 37 year old man date a 17 year old girl (no matter how old her body).  

Maybe they'll make Senior Year into a musical that will keep the exuberant silliness, clean up the plot a tiny bit, and add just a smidge of substance.  Just like Stephanie, a girl can dream.