Senior Year review: Rebel Wilson plays the cool girl, but the movie is anything but cool or trendy

2/5

Story: Stephanie Conway (Angourie Rice/Rebel Wilson) is the popular cheerleader girl who meets with an accident, which puts her in coma for 20 years. After waking up as a 37-year-old, she goes back to highschool to become prom queen. 

Review: You know how there are a long list of high school comedies about all the bitterness and backstabbing from a few decades ago, such as Mean Girls to Easy A. The Rebel Wilson-led Netflix comedy, Senior Year feels like a more poorly written version of this, but made to fit for 2022 where everything ends happily because apparently humans are respectful and empathetic beings. 

Senior Year starts off with Stephanie Conway (Angourie Rice) who has joined an American high school after moving from Australia and decides on her 14th birthday to become the most popular girl in school. Jump ahead three years, she does this, and just needs to get her hands on the prom queen tiara to prove it to herself. But the head cheerleader meets with an “accident” which puts her in a coma for 20 years. Waking up at the age of 37, she decides to go back to high school with the aim of becoming prom queen and prove her late mother right. 

Now, remember how movies such as 21 Jump Street, where two cops with polarising lifestyles in highschool go back there to bust a drug ring? Remember how the writers were able to get in a lot of details about the cultural paradigm shift of the youth? While 21 Jump Street gave us pointers such as how the “cool” kids don’t wear their school bags like the old days and even use eco-friendly modes of transport, the writers of Senior Year blatantly decided to do it with less than half the heart. They show the kids from 2022 as just wokes who are more politically correct. 

And because our main lead was and is a cheerleader, the cheerleading goes from fiery dance moves to just lines about how we need to save the planet, turtles and about inclusivity. The school that she used to attend is long gone and it is now a place where students can express their true selves, be respectful and voice all the right opinions. However, the movie does take five minutes, give or take, to show how social media and smartphones have taken over. From Instagram being the meter to calculate popularity to a subtle shot where “make new friends” becomes “get more followers”. 

Skip some runtime, and we get to the part where it all comes down to who becomes the prom queen. Before we get here, Steph runs into and has to deal with her old nemesis, who is now a mother and whose kid Steph has to compete against to win the tiara. But the last half an hour of the movie is a major let down, and this is considering that the movie was nothing special in the first place. Each scene feels like the writers had given up and just wanted to end the process of writing. And in just a few minutes, we see the influencer extraordinaire go from popular to an empathetic, caring human who lets Steph win. This is followed by another 15 minutes of apologies and moments of self realisation and being the better person. 

Now coming to Rebel Wilson, we all know that she is a talented comedian who has made us laugh in the past. But to play a 37-year-old with the mind and mannerisms of a 18-year-old was probably too much for even Rebel. But to her credit, she dishes out some solid moments, be it with comedy or emotions. But then again, not many actors can deliver a solid performance when the screenplay was as dull, lazy and uninspiring as that. Chris Parnell, who is known to pull out comedy out of nothing, is really the only person who delivers some genuine laughs, and sadly, even that isn’t enough to keep this movie entertaining. 

Verdict: While Senior Year looks like an interesting watch on paper, it is difficult to say with confidence that it will work for everyone. For viewers who love a good highschool comedy and want to spend some easy time on Netflix, Senior Year might just entertain them. But at the end of the day, the movie is poorly written, lacks any real comedy and misses out on a chance to add some flavour of nostalgia and focused details to it.