Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza in My old ass.
Marni Grossman/Amazon MGM Studios
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Marni Grossman/Amazon MGM Studios
18-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) is a character that anyone who has ever been a small-town teenager knows. In a few weeks, she will leave her quiet and all-too-familiar childhood surroundings behind and embrace the excitement and lure of college in “the city” – in this case Toronto – and already has one foot out the door. Spending time with her parents and little brothers takes a backseat, of course, as she hangs out with her best friends in their dingy old motorboat on the Muskoka Lakes and finally gets together with her long-time flame.
What distinguishes Megan Parks’s insidiously touching and bizarrely titled My old ass from other films dealing with the “last summer before growing up” theme is the high-flown premise of a hallucinogenic trip that turns out to be literally existential. On her birthday, Elliott and her friends Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) camp in the woods and take mushrooms. Elliott’s experience conjures up her 39-year-old self, played by the always fascinating Aubrey Plaza.
The younger Elliott has many questions – and some harsh criticisms – for the older Elliott. The older Elliott is happy to share some sage advice, to a certain extent. Don’t take the time you spend with your family for granted. Wear your retainer. Oh, and also: Avoid anyone named Chad.
Almost immediately, Elliott meets a lanky guy her age named—what else—Chad (Percy Hynes White), who has taken a summer job on her parents’ cranberry farm. Up until this point, she’s only been romantically interested in women. But she’s attracted to him anyway, partly because any wayward teenager would feel compelled to rebel against the older Elliott’s frustratingly vague warning, and also because Chad is effortlessly charming and almost too perfect in every way. She tries to push him away, but the two clash, and the experience shakes everything Elliott thought she knew about herself and her sexuality.
Kerrice Brooks as Ro, Maisy Stella as Elliott and Maddie Ziegler as Ruthie in My old ass.
Courtesy of Prime/Amazon MGM Studios
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There are a number of directions a filmmaker could go with such a prompt, and Park and her well-assembled cast ultimately create a coming-of-age story that is uniquely satisfying and engaging, not unlike that of Greta Gerwig Ladybugwith one shot Twilight Zone – The Hidden World It is not a psychedelic, woo type of film, nor does it attempt any CGI special effects that convey magical or supernatural events.
The fantasy element comes closest to this when it is a short, playful musical number that recalls Elliott’s childhood obsession with a certain Canadian pop star. Otherwise My old ass is firmly anchored in some sort of ordinary alternate reality in which a young adult might, for reasons thankfully never explained, have the opportunity to speak directly to his “middle” self. (Note: calling a 39-year-old “middle-aged,” as the younger Elliott does, may sound like a dig—and it is—but technically she is not wrong.) Hollywood has beaten the multiverse theme to a pulp, but here’s proof that it can still be given a clever and refreshing twist.
The lack of mystical lore leaves plenty of room for rich character and world building in a neat 90-minute package. Elliott, played by Stella, moves, thinks and expresses himself like a real Generation Z teenager: horny, a little cheeky (forward-thinking, given the current era), and a little self-centered, but also confident, open, and curious about a larger world she has yet to experience. The older Elliott gets less screen time and has the arguably more difficult task of exuding wisdom she’s hard-earned by actually experiencing that larger world, while still seeming deeply connected to the optimistic 18-year-old she once was. Plaza accomplishes this by tapping into her natural talent for conveying discomfort without being boring, portraying her side of the character with wit and compassion.
Ultimately, the two parts come together to form a whole that beautifully captures two traits: youth and inexperience, and age and caution. Park deals with recurring questions of identity, and above all, asks whether hindsight is really always 20/20 or whether it is something less clearly defined. At every stage of life there are facets to appreciate; the challenge is to recognize them in real time.
