Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a comedy film from 2022, titled Senior
Year. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care. The year is 2022, and a serious-looking Stephanie
is ready to share her story on the internet through a livestream with the help of her widower
dad Jim behind the camera. It all starts in 1999. Young Stephanie has recently moved from Australia
to the USA and she's having trouble fitting in. Her best friends are Martha and Seth, but they're
also part of the losers crowd, and Stephanie wants to be popular. She also has a crush on Blaine,
who is currently dating Tiffany, known for being the classic mean girl. After Tiffany embarrasses
her in front of everyone at her birthday party, Stephanie decides she'll work hard to become
popular. She changes her style, starts dieting and wearing make-up, and joins the cheerleader team.
By the time senior year comes around in 2002, Stephanie is incredibly popular, has become cheer
captain, and is dating Blaine. One morning, before going to school, Jim shares with her the last gift
her mother got her before she died: a beautiful dress that Stephanie promises to wear at prom.
Speaking of prom, Seth tries to ask her to go with him, but Stephanie is unaware he has
a crush on her and misunderstands his question, thinking he's talking about the after-prom party
she's planning to throw at Martha's lake house. Stephanie is desperate to become prom queen,
and she's already mad that Tiffany convinced the committee to change the coronation song. This
is important to her because she wants to have a perfect life like Deanna, one of their neighbors.
She's a gorgeous woman that also was cheer captain, dated and married a football player,
got her name on the prom queen display, and now lives in Stephanie's dream house.
When she arrives at school, Stephanie gets even madder at Tiffany after learning she's
also planning an after-prom party and she got to invite the football team first.
Stephanie meets with Tiffany in the bathroom to demand to know why she keeps trying to ruin her
life since she only started to date Blaine after they broke up, but Tiffany doesn't believe her
and refuses to cancel her party. The two girls now will be competing to become prom queen.
Later, it's time for the cheerleader squad to do their routine before a match.
Stephanie has appointed Martha as their equipment manager, something the popular cheerleaders don't
approve of, and Tiffany makes fun of Martha for being a loser. After Stephanie defends her friend,
she tells the group she's made a tape with their routine so future generations can replicate it,
which crosses the line into weirdness. Before their show starts, Tiffany decides to secretly
ask some of the other cheerleaders for a little favor. Once the cheer routine begins, the
performance goes well until Tiffany's friends step back and don't catch Stephanie after she makes a
particularly dangerous jump, causing her to fall to the floor and be sent to the hospital. Twenty
years later, an adult Stephanie wakes up from a two-decades-long comma in the hospital room.
There are birthday cards and balloons waiting for her, although she doesn't notice that the
guy on the tv is a grown-up Blaine, who now works selling cars. Stephanie doesn't understand what's
going on, and even passes out when she sees her reflection in the mirror. A moment later, a doctor
explains to her what happened - she doesn't have a scientific explanation for this, but she's glad to
see Stephanie is healthy, she just happens to have the mind of a seventeen-year-old in an adult body.
The ones that come pick Stephanie up are Jim and Martha, who has become their old high
school's principal. During the car ride, Stephanie learns about modern phones and
how the video of her fall has gone viral. Her embarrassment doesn't last long though, because
she gets easily distracted when Jim drives by her dream house and sees Blaine is living there.
Stephanie jumps out of the car and runs to ring the bell, only to discover that Tiffany is living
there too because she married Blaine. Tiffany tries to show sympathy for what happened to her,
but Stephanie accuses her of having stolen her life and leaves very angry, unaware that
Blaine's peeking through the window and noticing she's still pretty. When Stephanie gets home,
she discovers her dad never changed her room and even kept all her magazine subscriptions. However,
her clothes barely fit her anymore, and Stephanie doesn't know how to deal with this new body.
At that moment, someone rings the bell and when Stephanie opens the door, she finds her class
yearbook that was left there by Seth as a welcome gift. She ignores the pictures of Blaine and
Tiffany as prom king and queen and concentrates on the messages left by her friends, even if they're
treating her as if she was dead. Then, Stephanie remembers one of the last talks she had with her
mother, who told her she was smart, beautiful, and funny, and she was sure her daughter would grow
up to have the most perfect life. Determined to make her mother proud, Stephanie uses the
modern magazines to make a new plan. The next morning, she asks Martha to accept her back into
high school so she can finish the last month she's missing from senior year and graduate.
Martha refuses at first, but Stephanie reminds her she's still seventeen mentally and that she needs
to close this chapter of her life, so Martha gives in and takes care of the paperwork. After dressing
up as fashionable as possible, Stephanie returns to school and bumps into Seth, who now works as
the librarian. She's happy to see him well, but the rest of the school changes aren't as exciting:
not only the entire prom display has been removed because it sends a bad message,
the entire process of choosing king and queen isn't done anymore. Martha has created a school
with no losers, but if someone wants to bring those traditions back, they'll need to start
a petition. Stephanie starts to work on that, but when she goes to the cafeteria to gather support,
she discovers there aren't cliques either, just long tables where everyone sits together.
Somehow she manages to find the new cheerleaders and sits with them, getting their signatures on
the petition, but they explain to her that this won't go anywhere if Stephanie doesn't get support
from Tiffany's daughter Bri. While there aren't popularity contests in school anymore, those
definitely still exist on social media, and Bri is a very successful influencer. At that moment, Bri
comes over to welcome Stephanie and take a selfie with her, but she refuses to sign the petition.
After she's gone, the picture appears on Bri's Instagram, where she asks everyone to treat
Stephanie well because she's elderly, so Stephanie takes it as mocking. Once classes are over,
Stephanie joins the cheerleaders' practice with Martha as the new coach. She's disappointed to
find out the new routines are bland and sanitized, with songs that talk about serious social matters
with no dancing. There's also no captain, which frustrates her to no end. Afterward,
Stephanie spends some time with Seth learning how to use social media, and when she gets home, Jim
accepts to gift her a new phone. Stephanie spends most of the evening setting up her new accounts,
so now she only needs followers. The next day, she asks Bri if she would add her on Instagram,
but Bri turns her down, explaining she keeps the number of accounts she follows small for the sake
of her mental health. Later, Seth finds Stephanie while she's doing her make-up and asks her to come
to the movies with him, but Stephanie turns him down because she may be invited to a party that
she can't miss. A few days later, Martha and Jim try to have a chat with Stephanie:
because she's so concentrated on catching up with pop culture and social media, she's falling behind
on her classes, so Jim takes her phone but for the weekend. Later, Stephanie gets together with
the squad to make some signs for their performance and she uses their phones to see posts of Bri and
Blaine at a party. Tired of seeing cheerleaders being left behind when they're supposed to be
the cool ones, Stephanie decides to teach them a special dance routine with a Britney song.
During the next school prep rally, Stephanie puts her plan into play: the squad begins with
the normal, bland routine, but in the middle of it, they tear off the conservative uniforms to
show the miniskirts underneath and proceed to show a more daring dance that only Blaine celebrates
among the public. Afterward, Blaine approaches Stephanie in the parking lot to flirt with her,
but Stephanie stops him, reminding him he's married. This causes Blaine to confess he
hadn't broken up with Tiffany yet when he got together with Stephanie the first time,
breaking her no cheating rule. Upset, Stephanie leaves, reminding him he'll first have to make
a choice if he still wants her. The next morning, Stephanie discovers her routine was a success and
now she has thousands of followers on Instagram, plus sponsors are sending her their products for
her to promote. Martha calls her to her office to scold her for what she did, and Stephanie tells
her the school is boring with all these changes. Now Martha must explain that she made a nice place
out of school because for most people high school sucks. Stephanie doesn't believe it, so Martha
points out how her experience as a popular girl obviously makes her blind. She backs this up by
pointing out all the times Stephanie bailed on her and Seth to hang out with the popular kids
and even confesses she's gay, which made school a living hell for her and Stephanie never noticed.
Sometime later, Stephanie sees a post from Bri saying her parents are going to the movies,
so she goes back to Seth and accepts his previous invitation. At the theatre,
Stephanie loudly flirts with Seth to make Blaine jealous and annoy Tiffany, and Seth plays along.
Tiffany calls them out for their behavior, and the scene she causes gets her kicked out.
After the movie is over, Seth admits it was very satisfying to get revenge on the popular girl.
Stephanie confesses Martha said he has a crush on her, and Seth confirms it, explaining he
never said anything because Stephanie has always thought of only Blaine even just now,
when she used Seth to make Blaine jealous. It's the same trick she used to pull in high school,
using his and Martha's attention to make popular kids crave hers. Stephanie apologizes, confessing
she wants to be prom queen and to have a perfect life so badly because she can't disappoint her
mother's memory, then accepts to spend the rest of the evening with Seth to show him she does enjoy
his company. At the end of the night, Stephanie asks Seth to prom, and he accepts. Meanwhile,
Tiffany asks Bri to get prom king and queen reinstated and beat Stephanie for prom queen.
Bri can't believe what she's hearing since her mother always is speaking against gender roles,
but it seems it's all a farce to fit in with the current morals. Disappointed,
Bri turns her down, but Tiffany makes her do it anyway or she'll cancel her vacation trip.
The next day, Martha announces that thanks to the hundreds of people that signed Bri's petition,
prom king and queen have been reinstated. Stephanie is delighted, but she also needs to work
on her followers' support soon, because Tiffany's already putting up posters of her daughter all
over school. Later, Stephanie discovers everyone has been invited to an after-prom party at Bri's
except for her - the strangest part however, is that Bri didn't know about this either,
which means her mother is using her account. To counter this, Stephanie searches her old
bags to find the copy of the key to Martha's lake house and makes a post announcing her own party,
which is free unlike Bri's. To get an invitation, students just have to send a picture of their
ballots voting for Stephanie as queen. Prom night finally arrives, and Stephanie wears the dress her
mother had gotten her, which fortunately still fits. When she makes it to the venue with Seth,
she sees Tiffany is in charge of receiving the ballots and is most probably rigging the election.
To show she isn't scared, Stephanie still votes for Bri. Speaking of Bri, when she arrives,
Tiffany takes her aside to explain she has the votes under control, she also gives her daughter
a list of brands she must mention during her acceptance speech. Tired of having her mother
trying to live through her, Bri tells her to mind her own business. Blaine also comes
to prom and tries to kiss Stephanie, who isn't interested but can't shake him off. Seth sees this
and completely misunderstands the situation, thinking Stephanie has been using him again.
Before she can explain though, Martha appears on the stage to announce the winners. Bri's boyfriend
becomes king, and Bri is supposed to be queen thanks to the extra votes Tiffany added for her.
However, Bri withdraws from the competition, so Stephanie is the one to become queen.
After a night spent dancing and celebrating, it's time for the after-prom party,
and Bri tells everyone to go to Stephanie's to get revenge on her mother. Tiffany refuses to
accept this so she calls the police and tells them there's underage drinking at Martha's lake house.
When the cops arrive, so does Martha, who is furious with Stephanie for what she did. She
had lent her the house twenty years ago, not now, and even back then she hadn't truly wanted to.
Martha thinks Stephanie hasn't changed since high school and keeps pushing her and Seth
away when they were the only real friends she ever had. Stephanie disagrees, pointing out her
hospital room was full of gifts from everyone, so Martha realizes Stephanie never opened the cards
to see they were all from her and Seth, who were the only people that visited Stephanie at all.
Martha and Seth decide to deal with the cops on their own and leave Stephanie to go home alone.
Meanwhile, Bri calls her mother out for calling the cops and removes her from her social media.
She also tells Tiffany that she's living through her daughter because she has a miserable life,
and when Tiffany tries to deny it, Blaine cuts in and admits they're indeed miserable. Back to
Stephanie, she's taken a Lyft home and is shocked to discover the driver is Deanna, who isn't living
the perfect life anymore. Her husband divorced her before she even turned thirty so he could get
together with a younger barista, so she was left with no credit or job prospects, and that's why
now she works as a driver. She advises Stephanie to throw the crown away because all it got her
was a spray tan and pretty hair. Deanna wishes she would've gone to college instead, but she hasn't
given up: she's studying now, and for the first time, she's looking forward to her future. When
she gets home, Stephanie tears off the plan she had made and checks the cards from the hospital,
confirming they all came from Marth and Seth, nobody else. The next morning, Jim shows her
that she still has his love and support, inspiring her to start the livestream that takes us to the
beginning of the story. Stephanie apologizes for being a bad friend and neglecting the two most
important people in her life. She now understands that popularity and follower numbers don't matter,
and from now on, she'll start showing her real self, because it's better to stand out and be real
than to fit in like a fake. Her speech inspires some people at the school to find Stephanie's
tape with the old cheerleading routine. It also brings Tiffany to her door to apologize,
although actually, she's doing so Bri will unblock her. Stephanie tells her it's Bri who Tiffany
needs to make things better with because it's not healthy to compete with her own daughter,
then accepts Tiffany's apology before giving her the finger. By working hard on her studies again,
Stephanie gets to graduate with the rest of her class. When it's her turn to receive her diploma,
Stephanie gives Martha a cheque to pay for the damage to the lake house which she got by
selling her car. Martha accepts to make up with her, expressing how proud she is of her friend.
Afterward, the cheerleaders show Stephanie the surprise they got for her: they've learned her old
routine and perform it now for all the parents to watch. Martha and Seth are also dancing with them,
so Stephanie joins them, even inviting Tiffany to join them as well. This time around,
Stephanie gets to successfully pull the trick she failed twenty years ago.
After the performance is over, Seth asks Stephanie out and the two of them kiss.