Brief Story Line
Stephanie Conway (Angourie Rice - Mare of Easttown mini series etc) was a popular high school student, cheerleader captain and strong candidate for prom queen. While doing a cheer performance, she accidentally fell and suffered coma. After 20 years, a 37 year old Stephanie (Rebel Wilson - The Hustle, Jojo Rabbit etc) awaken from her long coma. Unsure of what to do with her life now, she finally decided to return to school & finish her senior year with the support from her father Jim (Chris Parnell - Home Sweet Home Alone etc). She also managed to convince her best friend Martha (Mary Holland - The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window mini series etc) who was now the school principal of her intention.
As Stephanie trying to adjust her new life back in high school while attempting to be prom queen, she had to face new competitions as well as some people from her teenager life, such as her old nemesis Tiffany (Zoë Chao - Love Life TV series etc) who was now the head of PTA, Blaine (Justin Hartley - The Hunt, The Young and the Restless TV series etc) who was her previous boyfriend and also her old best friend Seth (Sam Richardson - The Tomorrow War, M.O.D.O.K TV series etc) who used to have huge crush on her.
So how would the story conclude? You can find them all in this comedy movie.
End of Brief Story Line
As expected, this movie was relying heavily on the comedic situation arising from the absurdness of a 17 year old girl who awaken in her own body 20 years later. And frankly, I was enjoying myself (perhaps more than I should be), looking at the crazy things that would be done by a girl of such age in this kind of situation. There were plenty of moments were I chuckled and even laugh out loud whenever older Stephanie finding out various changes, but trying to act cool and not out of place.
The movie premise was something that understandably would create many awkward moments, and in this area I thought they quite delivered. To my surprise though, behind all those craziness, there were few times when the movie maker tried to make it a bit more serious with the conflicts or the huge adjustments Stephanie had to do on personal level. The conclusion of this movie was probably over simplistic to audience who expect deep story, but it did not disappoint me as I could have foreseen it. For a comedy movie, this one had a pretty long duration of 111 minutes which included closing credits that showed some scenes involving lots of the cast, plus a humorous mid end credit scene.
The main cast here were pretty standard, with Rebel Wilson showing her usual wit while Angourie Rice was quite impressive. Personally though, I was not able to really see Rebel as the older Stephanie even if she could sometimes look like a woman of 17 year old mind. Yes there was a bit likeness in term of Australian accent and the blonde hair, but that's about it. Not that I am saying Rebel was bad in here as she managed to give me lot of laughter. Oh Rebel Wilson also served as the co-producer of this movie which was directed by Alex Hardcastle.
Other than the names I mentioned above, there were also some support characters like the most popular girl in 2022 named Bri (Jade Bender), her boyfriend Lance (Michael Cimino - Love, Victor TV series etc), the intelligent Janet (Avantika Vandanapu - Spin etc), her best friend Yaz (Joshua Colley) and few others. There was even a surprise cameo of a quite popular teenage star of the 90s (though I was not able to recognize her and only realized after seeing her name in the credits).
Another thing that I enjoyed aside from Stephanie's behaviors was the realization of how extreme the changes were in the last twenty years, and not only on the technology but also of the social media relevance, gender & sexuality and many other things. There were also plenty of 90s popular songs playing in here which would make people from that generation delighted. Oh, and those scenes showing the difference between the imagination and reality were hilarious as well.
At the end of the day, this is a comedy movie which I think should not be seen as anything more. Even though it tried to bring some seriousness or deeper stuff, but it's only touching the surface and probably the reason it was not really favored by critics. For me personally, it was enjoyable and entertaining enough and I am sure people who like this kind of comedy would be happy too (am going to recommend my wife to watch it). So if you are just like me and do not take comedy films too seriously, you would most likely be entertained. But if you got to have a very meaningful story, then there is high possibility you will not like this. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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