Film Review: Senior Year is no Clueless but is perfectly acceptable popcorn fodder
Joshua Colley as Yaz, Avantika as Janet, Rebel Wilson as Stephanie Conway, Michael Cimino as Lance and Jade Bender as Bri Loves in Senior Year. Image: Boris Martin/Netflix © 2022
★★★☆☆
From the sublime to Rebel Wilson, who has built a career on being rude, crude and saying the kinds of things most people would cringe to think.
(15A) finds Wilson toning down her usual schtick, however, and offering a more rounded performance.Â
She plays Stephanie, a high school cheerleader destined to become prom queen until she’s sabotaged during a somersault routine by her frenemy Tiffany (Zoe Chao), who adds insult to injury by marrying Stephanie’s boyfriend Blaine (Justin Hartley) at some point during the two decades that Stephanie spends in a coma.
Miraculously revived at the age of 37, and once recovered from the shock of being ‘ ’d into some old lady’s body, Stephanie decides to return to high school to achieve her dream of prom queen. One problem: the current Ms Popular is Tiffany’s daughter Bri Loves (Jade Bender), who isn’t going to give up her crown without a struggle...
Alex Hardcastle’s movie is a frothy affair that has fun with Stephanie’s struggle to come to terms with the 21st century, although it’s not the technology that defeats her so much as the woke attitudes of her millennial schoolmates, and Rebel Wilson is good value as she goes charging around with her moral compass in a tizzy.
Hardcastle offers a few affectionate nods to previous high school popularity contests, and while is no (the Alicia Silverstone cameo notwithstanding), it’s perfectly acceptable popcorn fodder.
(Netflix)
