Blood, Sweat and Cheer is a 2023 Tubi original Black Comedy/Thriller movie (reminiscent of a Lifetime Movie of the Week), produced by MarVista Entertainment and directed by Traci Hays, with a screenplay by Barbara Zagrodnik.
Renee Mills (Tammin Sursok) is a single mom who's very involved in the life of her daughter Cherie (Monroe Cline), a member of Thompson Park High School's dance squad. Too involved, since Cherie has gotten fed up with her and goes to live with her father. Renee, who gave birth to Cherie in a Teen Pregnancy, had to give up her dreams of being a star high school cheerleader and going to college, and is clearly living vicariously through Cherie. Now deprived of that opportunity, a chance comment made to Renee by one of Cherie's teammates and a call from a college recruiter on a phone she confiscated from Cherie leads her to come with a wild backup plan: she'll enroll in an opposing high school as Cherie, even wearing her clothes, and join their dance squad. Finally living out the life she always wanted, Renee is willing to push aside anyone who might stand in her way, using violent means if necessary, as she also prevents her sister Lana (Courtney James Clark) from learning about her double life.
Compare and contrast to Identity Theft of a Cheerleader, a Lifetime movie with a similar premise (MarVista is one of Lifetime's frequent original movie providers).
It can be viewed here
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Blood, Sweat and Cheer contains examples of:
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: A lot of the reason she manages to successfully pass as a high schooler is that Renee, having given to birth to Cherie when she was in high school herself, is only around 33 or 34.
- Adults Dressed as Children: Renee borrows a bunch of Cherie's outfits for school, which are excessively pink and flashy and borderline inappropriate for an adult.
- Car Fu: Renee dispatches of Assistant Principal Robinson by running him over with her car after he starts to catch on to her ruse.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Dorinda is immediately suspicious of "Cherie" and her many peculiarities and rightly concludes that she isn't who she says she is, but then wrongly concludes that she's a mole sent to infiltrate and sabotage the Lincoln High dance team.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Lana is much more down-to-earth and conscientious than her flighty sister Renee, and even seems to have a much closer relationship to Cherie than Renee.
- Frame-Up: In order to get Dorinda out of the way so she can have her spot as top dancer and stop her from exposing her secret, Renee frames her for drug use by planting a bag of pills in her backpack.
- Girlish Pigtails: Renee adopts these when she becomes "Cherie".
- I Can Explain: Renee fumbles her attempt to explain things when Lana catches her making out with Ramsey.Renee: He's a...a...work friend and just was...we're having some...fun—Saturday...fun.
- Ignored Epiphany: Renee's relationship with Ramsey allows her to learn about how much his father pushes him in regards to athletics, which almost seems to make her realize how she's been doing the same with Cherie in regards to cheer. She says as much when Cherie finally calls her for the first time since moving out, but once Renee finds out Cherie is missing her dance squad, Renee slips right back into her old ways.
- Leg Focus: As "Cherie", Renee wears lots of shorts and miniskirts.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: At the climax.
- Likes Older Women: Rather than being skeeved out to learn that "Cherie" is really a thirtysomething woman, Ramsey seems kind of turned-on by the idea. It's also briefly hinted in the credits scene that he's attracted to Lana.
- Meaningful Name: "Renee" means "reborn" in French, and she decides to start her life over from scratch by posing as Cherie.
- Moment Killer: In her Cherie guise, Renee sneaks out of a Wild Teen Party with Ramsey and they go back to her house, where they start making out on a couch, but Lana walks in unannounced, and Ramsey quickly flees the scene.
- Mrs. Robinson: Thirtysomething Renee is attracted to star high school jock Ramsey, but is reluctant to hook up with him—until she learns that he's actually 19.
- Older Than They Look: Renee is in her early 30s with a petite build, and looks enough like Cherie that one of Cherie's teammates momentarily mistakes Renee for Cherie, which starts her mental gears turning on the plan to pose as Cherie. But it's zig-zagged a bit once she actually does it, because her face is clearly a bit aged. Dorinda comments on it, but just assumes that she's been neglecting her facial routine.
- The Oner: The closing credits, reminiscent of an 80s teen comedy or a Disney Channel movie, run over a single shot outside the auditorium, as various characters emerge and react to the story's climax.
- Plot Allergy: Mrs. Jenkins mentions early on that she has a peanut allergy, a fact that becomes a Chekhov's Gun when Renee decides to get revenge on her later.
- Pop-Up Texting: Used all throughout the movie for Renee's communications with various characters.
- Psychopathic Womanchild: Even before she takes on the identity of her daughter, Renee desperately tries to act like a teen in grown woman's body, buddying up to Cherie's friends and doing things like sharing TikTok videos (which the friends all seem to find creepy).
- Signature Style: MarVista Entertainment is a major provider of original movies for Lifetime, Disney Channel and Hallmark Channel, and this plays like a cross between those three disparate types of movies.
- Signing-Off Catchphrase: Mrs. Jenkins tells her students "Make good choices" at the end of each class, which is grimly ironic for Renee, who spends the whole movie making horrible, horrible choices.
- Stage Mom:
- Renee pushed Cherie into joining the dance team, and critiques her every move, putting her over into My Beloved Smother territory, which is a big reason why Cherie decided to live with her father.
- Coach Iverson is a Sports Dad toward Ramsey.
- Stern Teacher: Mrs. Jenkins, who teaches AP World History, gradually earns the enmity of "Cherie" for things like forbidding gum-chewing in class and flunking one of her tests. Renee tries to kill her by giving the peanut allergy-suffering Jenkins a peanut oil-laced cupcake, but she ultimately survives.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Like Identity Theft of a Cheerleader mentioned above, this is a fictionalized version of the story of Wendy Brown, a Wisconsin woman who posed as her own teenage daughter in 2008 (after her daughter went to live with relatives) and enrolled in a local high school, including trying out for the cheer squad. In fact, with Renee victimizing her own daughter, this is more accurate to Brown's story than the Lifetime movie was (except Brown didn't kill anyone). Brown got caught because she stopped attending school after the first week.
- Villain Protagonist: The movie is centered on Renee, who's guilty of identity theft, fraud, and eventually two murder attempts, one successful.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Bubbly Genki Girl Renee contrasts with her more straightfaced, grounded daughter Cherie.
