Senior Year is a 2022 comedy film directed by Alex Hardcastle and starring Rebel Wilson (who also worked as a producer).
The film begins in 1999, when 15 year old Australian immigrant Stephanie Conway (Angourie Rice) has her birthday party at Rock n Bowl, the local “cool” place. The only people who attend her party are her parents and best friends Martha and Seth. She invites her popular classmates Tiffany and Blaine (who are dating) to join them but Tiffany mocks her. After this, Stephanie vows to become the most popular girl in school. By 2002, Stephanie has become more popular than Tiffany, is dating Blaine and has become the Captain of the Cheerleading Squad. Stephanie’s mother tragically died of Cancer shortly after Stephanie turned 15. Stephanie is 17 years old and her Senior Year is nearly over. She plans to marry Blaine once they graduate and then live in a large mansion. Her idol is Deanna Russo (Alicia Silverstone), an alumna of Stephanie’s school who won Prom Queen and got married right after graduation and started living in a large, expensive mansion. As such, Stephanie hopes to become Prom Queen. However, when a Cheerleading stunt is sabotaged by Cruel Cheerleaders, Stephanie ends up in a coma...
20 years later in 2022, the now 37 year old Stephanie wakes up from her coma. She finds she has aged physically (now played by Wilson) but still has the mindset of a teenager like she did when she entered the coma. She finds her father is an old man, her best friend Martha (Mary Holland) is now their old school's principal, Stephanie’s boyfriend Blaine (Justin Hartley) is married to Tiffany (Zoë Chao), and they are living in Deanna Russo’s mansion. Hoping to finish her education and finally become Prom Queen, Stephanie convinces a reluctant Martha to let her join the Senior class of 2022. However, she finds herself in a strange new world where a thing called social media dominates the world, the Cheerleaders are no longer the popular people and the title of Prom King and Queen no longer exists at the school because of Martha. Blaine and Tiffany’s daughter, Bri, is now the most popular girl in school and reigns with a manicured fist, and Seth (Sam Richardson) is now the school librarian. Stephanie is determined to bring Prom King and Queen back and live the life she wanted to, but will she be able to make that happen?
The film's supporting cast also includes Michael Cimino, Jeremy Taylor, and Brandon Scott Jones. It was released on Netflix on May 13, 2022.
Senior Year contains examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: Stephanie’s father, no matter how kind he was, never stopped his daughter from becoming an Alpha Bitch. However, he does later discipline her during her second High school experience by taking her phone away.
- Tiffany encourages her daughter to be Queen Bee and doesn’t stop to think about her daughter’s feelings.
- Subverted with Martha, who as the school Principal as an adult does her best to stop bullying in her school, by making the Cheerleading Squad do kid-friendly cheers rather than sexually revealing stunts, making the cheers about important world issues like environmental issues and getting rid of Prom King and Queens because without winners there’s no losers.
- Alpha Bitch: This trope is demonstrated very often in the film but in very different ways:
- Tiffany appears to have been this during her Freshman year, being cruel and ruthless, making fun of dorky, weak, shy or just plain different people, like Martha and Seth and at the start Stephanie.
- Stephanie became much more popular than Tiffany, especially after beginning Cheerleading Captain. As the new Queen Bee, she did become rather arrogant but remained quite kind and considerate.
- Bri, Tiffany’s daughter in 2022. She’s every bit as ruthless and spoiled as Tiffany was, though means well. For example, she shows her good nature by using her power at school and on Social Media to raise awareness of topics like Feminism, Homophobia, Racism and more. This does show she’s not as bad as her mother was.
- Ambiguously Gay: Martha was a closeted Lesbian in High school. Not even her best friend Stephanie knew, and it doesn’t appear that Martha’s other best friend Seth knew either. It’s not clear exactly when Martha came out but she did at some point, making Martha’s sexuality no longer ambiguous.
- Arch-Enemy: Stephanie and Tiffany.
- Betty and Veronica: Stephanie is the Betty to Tiffany’s Veronica to Blaine’s Archie.
- Seth is the Betty to Blaine’s Veronica to Stephanie’s Archie.
- Be Yourself: Seth, Martha and Stephanie’s father wish Stephanie could be herself instead of her popular girl persona.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Tiffany acts like a nice woman in order to relate to the student body in order to live through her daughter. Of course, in High school, Tiffany was no more than a total bitch.
- Tiffany’s daughter, Bri, makes backhanded compliments in order to seem nice, while also sharing her personal opinion of something.
- To some extent, Stephanie was pretending to be something she wasn’t while also being a Lovable Alpha Bitch.
- Cruel Cheerleader: There were quite a few cruel Cheerleaders like Tiffany when Stephanie was a normal High school student. This is why Martha worked so hard to tame the Cheerleaders and make them more focused on important issues.
- D-Cup Distress: Stephanie is horrified by how buxom she has become in the 20 years.
- Eating Lunch Alone: When Martha became Principal, she decided that the tables in the cafeteria should all be joined up so that its just some big tables, not lots of individual tables. This way, everyone sits together and there is no real cliques.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Tiffany is the one who asked the twins to sabotage Stephanie during the Cheerleading routine. It’s not heard what Tiffany ordered them to do, but judging by the grim look on Tiffany’s face when Stephanie came crashing down into a coma, it’s unlikely Tiffany wanted Stephanie injured. She probably just told the twins to humiliate Stephanie, but they took it too far.
- Fallen Princess: Deanna Russo. Stephanie’s idol, who was Prom Queen at Stephanie’s school in 1995. After graduation, Deanna immediately got married to her Prom King and they began living in a huge mansion, Stephanie’s dream home. In 2022 Deanna is divorced working three jobs (one being a Taxi driver) as well as studying at a community college as a mature student. Deanna struggles to pay her bills and lives in a tiny apartment. She laments that because she chose to get married at 18 rather than go to College when she had the chance, she has a sad, poor life. However, she is studying for a degree so maybe there’s still hope for Deanna.
- Girl Posse: Tiffany and the twins.
- Granola Girl: Martha.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Despite the age gap, Stephanie (during her second experiment of Senior year) becomes this with Janet.
- Heel–Face Turn: Tiffany at the end.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Stephanie.
- Innocently Insensitive: Stephanie is this a lot!
- Jerkass: Tiffany, Blaine, Bri and even Stephanie at times have moments of this. Though to be fair on Stephanie, she doesn’t mean to be mean and the other three before her are more Jerks with a Heart of Gold.
- Jerk Jock: Blaine was the Captain of the Football team and not the nicest. Though to be fair, he wasn’t really a Bully and was at his worst when he was dating Tiffany.
- Just Friends: Seth and Martha. Seth only had eyes for Stephanie (who was oblivious to his crush on her) and Martha was a closeted Lesbian.
- Nice Mean And In Between: Out of some of the popular kids of 2002: Stephanie is Nice, Tiffany is Mean and Blaine is In-Between.
- Peer Pressure Makes You Evil: Stephanie was never really evil, but her desire to be one of “the popular” certainly changed her.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The two Cheerleaders who pushed the male cheerleader meant to catch Stephanie never appear again or are mentioned after they indirectly put Stephanie in a coma for 20 years. In fact, judging by the fact the students and teachers clearly saw the two girls push the guy supposed to catch Stephanie, it’s most likely the twins were expelled from the school.
