The film, starring McCarthy and Molly Gordon, follows a newly divorced mother who returns to college to complete her degree, and ends up bonding with her daughter's friends.

After dropping off their 22-year-old daughter Maddie to her senior year at Decatur University in Atlanta, Dan tells Deanna that he wants a divorce because he has fallen in love with another woman, realtor Marcie.

Deanna visits Maddie to tell the news and about her plans to enroll at Decatur University to finish her degree in Archaeology.

While Deanna is at a restaurant with Christine and Frank (her husband), and another couple (Bill and Amy) from their group of friends, Dan and Marcie unexpectedly show up, declaring they are getting married.

Deanna tries to make amends with Maddie, and tells her that she is leaving college since she has no means of paying the rest of her tuition.

Suddenly, Aguilera (who turns out to be Leonor's cousin) arrives, and puts on a show with Deanna and the girls to an excited crowd.

She is nervous until Maddie, Helen, Amanda, Debbie and all the sorority sisters show up to support her, and this time, Deanna manages to give the presentation with ease.

Life of the Party was announced in April 2016, with Melissa McCarthy set to star and Ben Falcone to direct.

The sorority house used in the film is The Twelve Oaks Bed & Breakfast located in Covington, GA.

[3] In the United States and Canada, Life of the Party was released alongside Breaking In, and was projected to gross $18–21 million from 3,656 theaters in its opening weekend.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Life of the Party's good-natured humor and abundance of onscreen talent aren't enough to make up for jumbled direction and a script that misses far more often than it hits.

[15] Critic Jeff Giles called it "a frustratingly middling comedy that never really figures out what to do with all that talent and fails to produce consistent laughs.