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Senior Year centres around Stephanie Conway – Rebel Wilson (Grimsby), for most of the film, but as Angourie Rice (The Nice Guys) in earlier scenes – whose mother has long since passed away yet she still misses her.
But prom night is coming up, and with optimism on the horizon, she wants to date hunky Blaine and being Prom King and Queen with him. However, she faces competition from the feisty Tiffany, but who will win?
Well, in a rather protracted, long opening scene of around 16 minutes, in Steph’s bid to be Prom Queen and lead the cheerleaders, an unfortunate accident occurs in their performance when she crash-lands to the floor… and it hurts.
Thing is, when she wakes up 20 years later – going from 17 to 37 in what feels like a matter of minutes for her – how come her hair is already dyed blonde? Okay, mere details, along with the fact that she has incredible mobility for someone who’s only just stepped out of bed after all this time – even longer than Charlie Bucket’s grandparents in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; as well as the fact her family have kept her car after all this time, presuming it’s been serviced.
Following some slapdash humour after two decades, including Steph throwing herself out of the car because her parents are driving past Blaine’s house, along with her mistaking Lady Gaga on a magazine for Madonna, as if the latter hasn’t aged, I started to think Senior Year was going downhill because it was getting a bit ridiculous.
However, for Steph, the important thing is that she wants to go back to highschool and finish her final year, as well as wanting to get in with the cool kids, the coolest being Bri Luvs (Jade Bender) – who’s actually Tiffany’s daughter – along with bringing back cheerleaders, and the top role of ‘prom queen’, aka ‘cheer captain’.
But this is a new world, one where Instagram followers are more important than friends, and she’s delusional that creating a make-up tutorial where she looks ridiculous (“like a Batman villain?”, as friend-cum-school librarian Seth tells her) is a good idea.
Along with best friends Janet (Avantika) and Yaz (Joshua Colley), Senior Year, is a bit like a daft ’80s comedy, but udpated for the social media age, along with mimicking Britney Spears’ Crazy video in a bid to come up with a winning dance routine at school in a competition.
Overall, this is largely affable nonsense, and not to be taken too seriously, but in a way, it’s quite sweet for anyone who might be in a similar position (albeit without Rebel’s craziness). That said, i also has a lot of positive messages about trying to attain things in life that you thought you’d list the chance to achieve, as well as showing what’s really important in life.
And as an aside, I like how Rebel uses an ’80s-style huge calculator (like I once had), albeit here, pretending it’s a mobile phone.
And some mid- and post-credits scenes:
Senior Year is on Netflix now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 113 minutes
Release date: May 13th 2022
Studio: Netflix
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Score: 7/10
Director: Alex Hardcastle
Producers: Chris Bender, Timothy M Bourne, Todd Garner, Rebel Wilson
Screenplay: Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli, Brandon Scott Jones
Music: Jermaine Stegall
Cast:
Stephanie Conway: Rebel Wilson
Young Stephanie Conway: Angourie Rice
Martha Reiser: Mary Holland
Young Martha Reiser: Molly Brown
Seth Novacelik: Sam Richardson
Young Seth Novacelik: Zaire Adams
Tiffany Blanchette: Zoë Chao
Young Tiffany Blanchette: Ana Yi Puig
Blaine Balbo: Justin Hartley
Young Blaine Balbo: Tyler Barnhardt
Bri Luvs: Jade Bender
Jim Conway: Chris Parnell
Janet: Avantika
Yaz: Joshua Colley
Neil Chudd: Jeremy Ray Taylor
Lance: Michael Cimino
Mr T: Brandon Scott Jones
Dr. Jean Johnson: Tiffany Denise Hobbs
Nurse: Lauren Halperin
Deanna Russo: Alicia Silverstone
Lydia Conway: Lucy Taylor
Principal Young: Merrick McCartha
Drunk Person: Ruby Frankel
Himself: Steve Aoki
News Anchor: John Crow
Movie Goer: Mimi Gould
Usher: Vance Kanell
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.