My Old Ass (2024, dir. Megan Park)

by Jack Martin | Sep 24, 2024

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 89 mins

UK Distributor: Curzon

UK Release Date: 27 September 2024

WHO’S IN MY OLD ASS?

Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza, Maddie Ziegler, Kerrice Brooks, Percy Hynes White, Maria Dizzia, Seth Isaac Johnson, Carter Trozzolo, Al Goulem, Alexandria Rivera

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Megan Park (director, writer), Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara, Steven Rales and Margot Robbie (producers), Jaco Caraco and Tyler Hilton (composers), Kristen Correll (cinematographer), Jennifer Vecchiarello (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A teen (Stella) has an unexpected encounter with her older self (Plaza)…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON MY OLD ASS?

When you’re young, all you can think about is getting older. When you’re older, all you can think about is being young again. Such is the cruel cycle of life, but in My Old Ass – writer-director Megan Park’s endearing and charming coming-of-age comedy – the cycle transforms into an unusual Venn diagram, with the linking element being how both young and old versions of yourself can not only learn from each other, but also help shape their past, present and future in stronger ways than they currently may be.

Park, on her second feature as a filmmaker (following the Jenna Ortega teen drama The Fallout, a film that inexplicably still does not have a UK release date, despite being released everywhere else back in 2022), delivers a smart, funny and genuinely sweet film that is easy to love, difficult to hate, and practically impossible to feel in any way bad during. In terms of (sort of) time-travel comedies, it’s also one of the more original in recent years, and while it occasionally dabbles in familiar YA conventions, their execution is strong enough to lend itself plenty of goodwill toward its wide and impressionable audience.

The film begins as Elliot (Maisy Stella), an eighteen-year-old who’s eager to leave both her Canadian harbour town and her family’s cranberry farm behind as soon as she can, goes on a camping trip with her friends Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks). They ingest some magic mushrooms to experience a fun trip, but Elliot ends up hallucinating an unexpected visitor: her older self (Aubrey Plaza), envisioned as a late-thirties woman who is still at school studying for her PhD, and is particularly keen to impart some valuable wisdom onto the young teen that she used to be.

One significant piece of advice that older Elliot gives to young Elliot is to stay away from a boy named Chad, telling her that he will ruin her life, though she never mentions why. Sure enough, not long after the mushroom trip ends, Elliot has an encounter with a boy named – you guessed it – Chad (Percy Hynes White), while by some miraculous form of nature, older Elliot’s appearance may not have been a mere hallucination after all.

Like some of the most memorable time-travel movies, no clear explanation is ever given as to how it’s possible that two versions of the same person can meet at one time, without some sort of paradoxical consequence (drugs, apparently, help a lot – perhaps not the best lesson to impart onto younger viewers). Instead, Park just lets the odd occurrence be just that, while paying more attention to the dramatic implications of suddenly having your older self be a bizarre life coach.

The writer-director injects plenty of humour into her tightly compressed narrative, largely from the naturalistic banter between characters as well as a fantasy sequence involving a classic Justin Bieber song, but also some tender moments as some of the advice that older Elliot imparts onto her younger self eventually ends up being beneficial to both versions, with the results being genuinely moving in parts. Beyond some of the more expected advice, such as being nicer to family and friends, there is a strong compassion within Park’s script and direction that allows you to identify with these characters and their growing curiosity as to why may lie ahead of them, or in older Elliot’s case what she’s left behind in her youth.

As the maybe/maybe-not hallucinated older self, Aubrey Plaza brings a slightly more mature version of her sardonic screen persona to her performance, and though she is not on screen for very long – for much of the movie, she quite literally phones it in – the actor certainly leaves an impression. This, however, is Maisy Stella’s time to shine, as the young performer emits bright lovability as a character who is extremely easy to root for, even in her least admirable moments.

In their precious few moments of screentime together, Plaza and Stella have a sweet bond that builds to a point where, despite not really looking that much alike (a fact that the characters even jokingly allude to), you can definitely tell that these two are the same person at different points in her life. Either way, you’re fully on board with this character and their shared insecurities, both as an older woman and as an impressionable teen.

Speaking of the latter, Stella’s Elliot might well be the most rounded teen protagonist in a coming-of-age movie since Saoirse Ronan (a figure who plays into one of the film’s most notable visual gags) in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, for similar to that character, she is the kind of teen who, when we first meet her, feels as though she’s got it all figured out. She’s already thinking ahead to her college years in Toronto, to where she’s already halfway through packing virtually all her belongings, and even seems confident in her queer identity, regularly hooking up with a local female barista.

But as the film progresses, and as she begins developing feelings for Percy Hynes White’s character – who is very likely the most likeable movie character named Chad in existence – her true self, one that may well shape Plaza’s Elliot, begins to emerge. It is a self that compliments everything she already knows about herself while also expanding upon them, and Park is careful not to replace the bubbly, if somewhat selfish, person we are initially introduced to (thankfully, this isn’t the kind of film where a queer-identifying character is turned straight by the end).

Either way, it’s clear as day that this young Elliot still has a lot to learn, and whether it’s through her life experiences or the involvement of her older self – who, again, may or may not be the result of ingesting a shit-ton of mushrooms – My Old Ass lets these lessons flow as naturally as the young actor does. Even when it occasionally falls into conventional coming-of-age movie trappings, the execution is solid enough that you’re enjoying absorbing these life lessons as Elliot – both of them – is.

SO, TO SUM UP…

My Old Ass is a funny, smart and charming coming-of-age dramady that explores the emotional side of its out-there premise to genuinely sweet results, with a breakout turn by Maisy Stella fuelling much of the film’s overall lovability.