Much of Senior Year—the new Netflix comedy starring Rebel Wilson that began streaming today—is spent on nostalgia. It makes sense, given that the premise of the film finds Wilson as a former high school cheerleader who lands a jump wrong in the year 2002, slips into a 20-year coma, and wakes up in the year 2022. But curiously, a lot of that nostalgia is for the year 1999, rather than 2002. (Almost as if the script, from writers Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli, and Brandon Scott Jones, were written in 2019, not 2022). And nothing is more 1999 than Britney Spears.
In case you need a reminder that she was and is an icon, 1999 was the year Spears released her debut album …Baby One More Time, which soon became the gold standard for pop albums. So it’s only fitting that Wilson’s character, Stephanie, would turn to Britney in a time of need.
Here’s how it goes down: Stephanie has weaseled her way back into her old high school, determined to finish out her senior year as both cheer captain and prom queen, despite the fact that she’s pushing 40. But, to her dismay, the cheerleaders are no longer the popular kids. More than that, they no longer do sexy dances to top 40s pop music as their routines. When Steph discovers that no one on the cheer squad was invited to the cool-kid influencer party, she decides her teammates need to loosen up and have some fun by dancing around to the 1999 hit single, “(You Drive Me) Crazy.” And because this is a movie, that quickly transitions into Wilson in a sparkly green top in a faithful reenactment of the music video.
While not quite as prolific as the album’s titular singular, “Crazy” still hit the top 10, and came with an unforgettable music video, top-notch choreography, and, of course, a signature outfit. You can never recreate perfection, but Wilson and her cheerleaders go all out. Audiences already know Wilson can sing and dance, of course—Fat Amy didn’t turn the beat around in Pitch Perfect for nothing—but Britney’s dance moves are on a new level.
In a behind-the-scenes video released by Netflix, which you can watch above along with the full “Crazy” dance scene, Wilson said they rehearsed the number over the course of five days. And, she says, she took it very seriously. “I just tried to channel [Spears’] energy,” Wilson said. “In a couple takes, our director Alex Hardcastle was like, ‘I thought for a second that was Britney.’”
Equally impressive are the teen actors, some of whom, it turns out, are pretty amazing dancers. The number was rehearsed over the course of five days, says Wilson, and the entire cast of young actors immediately jumped in and got it. “I was really impressed,” she said.
That’s not the only booty shaking that the cheer squad does in Senior Year. After finally winning prom queen, Wilson does an emotional duet with her prom king to Celine Dion’s “The Power of Love,” and, at graduation, the cheerleaders regal their classmates by gyrating to Nelly’s “Hot in Here.” But none quite live up to the “Crazy” scene. After all, Britney will always be the queen.
