In 17 Again, Zac Efron plays a 37-year-old man who mysteriously goes back in time 20 years and is given a second chance at high school.
These scripts of a fish out of water have been retold countless times in Hollywood, especially in comedy.
And if you see the premise of Netflix's latest comedy Senior Year, starring Australian actress Rebel Wilson and feel like you've seen this sort of movie before, well, that's because you have. The film is basically a mix of all things formulaic. You have that basic plot of someone who comes back to life with some of Drew Barrymore's Never Been Kissed (1999) and some teen sports movies like Mean Girls (2004), and Bring It On (2000), and the result is Senior Year.
Wilson has made a splash in the comedy world since becoming known for her role as "Fat Amy" in the first Pitch Perfect (2012). She took a couple of years off after the Oscar-winning WWII satire drama Jojo Rabbit (2019), but the actor is now back with a new slim look and is in the spotlight with Senior Year. Directed by Alex Hardcastle, the film tells a story of a cheerleader captain Stephanie (Wilson) who accidentally falls off a pyramid and into a 20-year coma. She wakes up in the body of a 37-year-old woman, but having only aged physically and knowing nothing else. Despite not physically being a teen anymore, Stephanie decides to return to high school to finish her senior year and reclaim her seat at the popular table and claim the prom queen crown that eluded her.
As Wilson's character, Stephanie, has been out of commission for 20 years, many things have changed from fashion, styles, technology and terminology. And since Stephanie woke up from the coma, the movie spent most of the second and third quarter playing out the fish out of water subplot and how she experiences a culture shock like what is an iPhone? What is social media? There's also social commentary on how high social life in school has or could change for the better like how people nowadays can never accept words like "retarded" or "super gay". The story inadvertently points out how some of those changes suck.
This movie has quite a large cast with younger actors like Zaire Adams as Seth, Molly Brown as Martha Reiser. Angourie Rice plays the role of the younger Stephanie, which is quite an odd choice because I don't see any resemblance between Rice and Wilson at all.
Even though Senior Year is billed as a comedy, I did expect to be amused, but the majority of the time the jokes just felt very forced and hardly landed. The storytelling isn't that strong in this movie. Despite Stephanie having the body of an adult, her mindset is still of a teenager. I would have loved it if the story dove more into that aspect, but instead of giving a character development, we get a shallow overview of someone who's desperately wanting to get back to the limelight. Although Wilson is good at what she's doing, I think the filmmaker didn't do a good enough job at helping her create something new instead of letting her play the same over the top humour of her previous roles. Even though there were some heartfelt moments where we got to see changes in our characters, instead of being emotional moments, the scenes were usually distracted by raunchy humour that isn't funny.
So overall, Senior Year is a mild entertainment comedy drama, but it relies too much on rehashing ideas from other teen-themed movies without finding its own voice to make it unique. This is a movie that you might actually enjoy when there's no other option available.
- Senior Year
- Starring Rebel Wilson, Sam Richardson, Angourie Rice
- Directed by Alex Hardcastle
- Now streaming on Netflix
