At first glance, it wouldn’t be unfair to view My Old Ass, the new feature from Canadian actress-turned-director Megan Park, as a bit of a left turn. Park’s previous film, The Fallout (which won the Feature Competition Jury Award at SXSW 2021), was a partially somber exploration of a school shooting survivor and the aching trauma she endured in the event’s tragic wake. Sensitive and masterfully made, it may go down as one of the defining films of this moment in history and the youth living through it. By contrast, My Old Ass delivers a broader high-concept premise, complete with time travel, mushroom trips, and a YA-sounding love story. Despite the tonal and material pivot, however, it turns out that, with what’s only her sophomore feature, Park has devised another mature and heartfelt coming-of-age tale.
In Muskoka Lakes, Ontario, queer teen Elliott (Maisy Stella) is celebrating her 18th birthday. In fact, it’s her last birthday in her hometown before heading off to college in Toronto in three weeks. So far, everything is going according to plan. She has already hooked up with her dream crush Chelsea (Alexandria Rivera), and now she is ignoring the celebrations her family had planned in order to camp in the woods with best friends Ruthie (a scene-stealing Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks). The latter has brought along those pesky, aforementioned hallucinogenic mushrooms, which the group take together. But whatever Elliott expects to see does not come to pass, and she is instead shocked to come face-to-face with her 39-year-old self from the future. This Elliott is a wisecracking, weary, and sardonic woman — so, naturally, she is played by Aubrey Plaza — and she has some advice for her past self. First of all, spend as time as you can with your family — mother Kathy (Maria Dizzia), father Tom (Al Goulem), golf-playing middle brother Max (Seth Isaac Johnson), and Saoirse Ronan-obsessed younger brother Spencer (Carter Trozzolo). Secondly, avoid anyone named Chad.
Simple enough advice, it would seem, but Elliott soon finds that following it is easier said than done. The very next day, she meets Chad (Percy Hynes White), and despite her initial objections, Elliott warms to him. He seems perfectly harmless — handy, a little goofy, and blessed with a symmetrical face. Why does the older Elliott want her to stay away from him? Luckily, she has the means of finding out. You see, young Elliott is able to contact her “old ass” self via her phone, and she subsequently seeks additional guidance on how to navigate the ticking time of those last summer days.
My Old Ass is a film about change — anticipating it, processing it, accepting it. Park’s script captures that “end of an era” sensation of your final adolescent years, where understanding dawns that nothing will be the same again once you leave your hometown and head into an uncertain future. “The one thing you don’t get back is time,” the introspective older Elliott observes. And though her younger self may initially roll her eyes at this, that statement becomes more meaningful to her the more she spends time with her family and on their cranberry farm. Notably, Elliott says she doesn’t want to be there when she is older — later, after a bombshell she only suddenly hears about, she realizes how much she will miss the place. My Old Ass revels in this bottled-up nature of teendom, the shifty space where one struggles to find the right words and locate the deep-down emotions that might help convey authentic feeling.
The halcyon last days of summer are nicely expressed here both visually and aurally, from DP Kristen Correll shooting with a warm glow to a wistful score courtesy of Jaco Caraco and Tyler Hilton. Both aesthetic choices feel as nostalgic as the soundtrack that supports My Old Ass, full of Canadian artists like Nelly Furtado and Justin Bieber (as also seen in another hallucination sequence that demonstrates the film’s pitch-perfect sense of humor). And all of that is before getting to the fact that this is Maisy Stella’s first film role. In a remarkable performance by turns funny, relatable and engaging, Stella realizes Elliott as far more than an unmindful teen itching to move on to bigger and better things. Moreover, her and Plaza share effervescent chemistry, allowing them both to flex their acting muscles, but especially Plaza. As a dramatic actress, she has always been stunning in small indie films — particularly Black Bear and Emily the Criminal — and she here brings a surprising vulnerability and palpable wounded interior to her trademark deadpan delivery.
The primary thing My Old Ass doesn’t get quite right is how it handles its main character’s queerness. While the film begins as a lesbian romance, it quickly tunes all its focus on Elliott’s burgeoning relationship with Chad. The understanding, of course, is that this formative period represents but a further element of her journey of self-discovery and sexual fluidity, leading her to theorize that she could be bi or pansexual. But in the imbalance of these two threads, Elliott’s sexual identity begins to feel more disposable than not, bordering even on the implication that she is “made straight,” which is hard to ignore.
Still, between My Old Ass and The Fallout, it’s clear that Megan Park has become an exciting voice for authentic young stories. She has an eye and ear for realistic teenagers — not just how they speak and act, but also the anxieties and uncertainties that can consume them, all conveyed with emotional authenticity. Viewers won’t miss the messaging: you can tell that Park is trying to be wise and thoughtful with her observations on the preciousness of adolescence and the cascade of complexities that enter life at this age, but the essential distinction is that it all comes across quite earnestly rather than as mere cloying sentimentalism, helped immensely by Park’s intelligent writing and engaging performances from Stella and Plaza. It all works well to recommend My Old Ass as the right kind of coming-of-age film, a charming and poignant document on learning to be present even amidst the understanding that everything will, and has already begun to, change.
DIRECTOR: Megan Park; CAST: Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler; DISTRIBUTOR: Amazon MGM Studios; IN THEATERS: September 13; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 29 min.
