Senior Year – An Irritating Mess That Never Works

When it comes to comedies, there’s only so many times they can go to the well and still be effective. Putting a mirror to today’s generation for laughs is low hanging fruit at this point though it somehow keeps happening and the more it does, the less funny it is. It’s just sad more than anything else. When it comes to Senior Year, it’s no different but this trope only paves the way for a ridiculous and unfunny film that never seemed sure of what it truly wanted to be, spending nearly 2 hours to figure it out without ever getting there. Not only is it too long, its premise is also arguably extremely creepy which increasingly became a distraction from its otherwise obvious themes that have been done to death in countless better films. Beating viewers to death with the same stale and unfunny humor, the film frustratingly refuses to pick a side and instead plays it seriously in order to give it some sort of deeper meaning which doesn’t work rather than embracing its ridiculous premise which had the potential to at least be somewhat entertaining.

Senior Year follows a woman named Stephanie Conway (Wilson), a 37-year-old woman who upon waking up after a 20 year long coma following a freak cheerleading accident, vowed to complete her final year of high school and live out her dream of becoming prom queen. Given a new lease on life, she needed a purpose therefore believed this unfinished business would give her that. Climbing up the social ladder over the course of her time in high school, achieving prom queen would be the culmination of that journey. This was how she thought she’d move on with her life but ultimately, she needed to grow up in order to move forward. Suffice it to say that this process wasn’t necessarily straightforward as the premise of a middle-aged woman in a high school full of near-adults didn’t quite mesh with that of a woman looking to move on with her life. Perhaps on purpose to match Stephanie’s immaturity, it was unclear where one begins and the other ends. Either way, it was a mess to follow. So much so that the film would have fared better had it picked a side or at least attempted to favor one over the other.

The premise of Senior Year inevitably invites a contrast between the youth of the early 2000s and those of today using the character of Stephanie and her friends Martha (Holland) and Seth (Richardson) who found herself part of both generations (Angourie Rice, Molly Brown, and Zaire Adams respectively as the younger versions of Stephanie, Martha, and Seth). All the material that came from it should not come as that much of a surprise to anyone who has ever seen any comedy ever. Doing so through incredibly obnoxious characters, lazy references, and cringeworthy humor to shine a mirror on today’s youth and social media culture, the end result was a painful watch. However, some viewers may find fun here as they are likely to connect with it more than others. That being said, Stephanie’s interactions with the film’s current day high school characters came off as creepy as the premise was never believable enough to work. As the film merely brushes all of that off on its way to a predictable end, it was simply hard to care about the immature and irritating Stephanie and her character arc, deserved or not.

In terms of its performances, Senior Year was decent across the board despite the script not doing it any favors. As the lead, Wilson was irritating more often than not as the immature Stephanie. Wanting viewers to go with her along her journey of self-rediscovery, she made it difficult to do so. For many, that will be where the film dies. At least, Rice does a decent impression of her as the younger Stephanie though that isn’t necessarily a compliment. Holland and Richardson are left to pick up the slack as Martha and Seth but they could only do so much as one can’t help but feel bad for them. Meanwhile, Zoe Chao makes a decent foil as the adult version of Stephanie’s teenage foil named Tiffany and the film has some somewhat entertaining dance numbers for whatever reason.

At the end of the day, Senior Year is a misfire undeserving of graduation.

still courtesy of Netflix

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.