They say that taking psychedelic mushrooms causes hallucinations, anxiety, paranoia and nervousness. In the case of Elliott, a restless 18-year-old Canadian, they induced a visitor to do so.
“Dude, I’m you,” the guest says as she casually burns smores on a campfire next to a very stoned and stunned Elliott. “So, I’m a 39-year-old you. What’s up?”
What’s going on here: Director and screenwriter Megan Park has used this comedic device to create a wistful coming-of-age story for “My Old Ass,” and even though she gets off to a good start, the results are uneven.
After the older Elliott proves who she is—they share a special scar, childhood memories, and a smaller left breast—the time-travel advice begins: Be nice to your brothers and your mother, and stay away from a guy named Chad.
“Can we hug?” the older Elliott asks. They do. “This is so weird,” says the younger Elliott, who then makes things even weirder when he asks for a kiss – to experience what it’s like to kiss himself. The older Elliott soon enters her number into the younger’s phone under the name “My Old Ass.” Then they stay in touch long after the effects of the mushrooms wear off.
One obvious problem with the film is that the two Elliotts don’t look alike at all. Maisy Stella plays the young, gallant version and an ironic Aubrey Plaza plays the older one. Both give good performances, but the visual effects start to get boring.
The older Elliott’s arrival coincides with her younger self counting the days until she can escape her small town of 300 people in the Muskoka Lakes region for college in Toronto, where “my life is just beginning.” She’s tired of life on a cranberry farm.
Park’s scenes and dialogue are relaxed and honest, as Elliott follows the advice of her older self and tries to mend relationships with her golf-loving older brother and her wonderfully odd younger brother, who is obsessed with Saoirse Ronan. This is a filmmaker who knows siblings and how they interact.
Then Chad shows up.
Chad is sweet and thoughtful and silly and cute and smart and resourceful and totally into Elliott. “Everything about him feels so right,” the younger man complains. A central question of the film is why My Old Ass wants young Elliott to stay away from Chad, which Percy Hynes White plays so wonderfully that you just want to talk some sense into both women.
Both parts of Park’s film – the coming-of-age story and the story of my visit from the future – work, but perhaps not in the same film, a bit like the two different Elliotts. The tone of each part is different, one wistful, the other mad, and together they threaten to pull “My Old Ass” apart.
Aside from a hilariously funny mushroom-induced dream sequence involving a Justin Bieber concert, Park most powerfully explores the liminal space between the end of one thing and the beginning of another—tender, beautiful reminders that are sad yet necessary.
Both Chad and Elliott’s mother (a strong Maria Dizzia) have beautiful dialogue about the profound impact that tiny moments of change can have: “Sometimes you know it’s over forever – like a baby moving from bed to crib – and sometimes you never get to say goodbye, like the last day you spent all day goofing around on bikes with your friends.”
Even if the road is a little bumpy, you’ll stick around until the satisfying end where, somewhat predictably, the younger Elliott offers the older one some sage advice. There are a moment or two where Chad threatens to overpower “My Old Ass” and steer it into a third film, but Park knows her way. It’s a story that’s always been about the younger Elliott, and it’s a joy to see her finally steering her boat – literally and metaphorically.
“My Old Ass,” an Amazon MGM Studios film that opens in New York and Los Angeles theaters Friday and opens in theaters Sept. 27, is rated R “for language throughout, drug use and sexual content.” Running time: 89 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
