My Old Ass

Were you to come face to face with your older self, the harrowing possibilities seem endless (and tellingly, the positives so vanishingly few). What would be more favourable? To know that things won’t change nearly as much as you’d hoped, or that they will change every bit as much as you’d feared? Worse still, what if your future self simply could not give you the assurance that grown-up life and love is really as you’ve imagined it? Over a late-night campfire, 18-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) declares that, as she prepares to make her first steps into adulthood, hope is the thing she most longs to find. The sudden fireside apparition of her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza) is what threatens to extinguish it altogether, as she delivers what appears to be the one message she has left for the teenage her: “Don’t get your hopes up.” Also, steer clear of boys named Chad by any means necessary.

The tension between Elliott’s adventure-seeking abandon and the blithe weariness that awaits her is where writer-director Megan Park’s heartfelt coming of age-er thrives. Is the older Elliott right to ready the girl she was for the realities waiting outside the nest, or is her warning no less than a betrayal, clipping wings that are as yet unused? Though the brief encounter of the Elliotts is tender and funny, Plaza is largely an offscreen presence, leaving the weight of these questions to play out almost entirely on Stella’s face. Fully convincing as a confident, funny teen blindsided by the realisation that she may not know herself as fully as she thought, My Old Ass’s earnestness lands with such a light touch in large part because Stella feels so unforced. It’s pleasure enough just to watch her be, in all her mess.

Over the remaining days of the summer, Elliott finds herself drawn into the orbit of the Chad of whom she’s been warned (Percy Hynes White), while realising the idyllic lakeside farm she calls home may be slipping away. To see your home in newly transient terms is to learn that growing older may mean more goodbyes than hellos, and considering that, it’s no wonder she seeks out new horizons. During this time, Chad suddenly seems to embody everything mysterious and exciting. One only wishes the film made a more exciting case for him.

Ultimately, Elliott’s love interest rarely feels like more of a character than a dreamy concept, but perhaps that’s one more way in which Park’s film defiantly aligns itself with its teen heroine. It does not want to ignore the uglier truths, but it permits itself to want the fairytale a little too, and argues that its reckless pursuit carries its own wisdom. Unlike Elliott’s own old ass, My Old Ass is wise enough to know that living un-cautiously may be required to live at all.

Thomas Messner

My Old Ass is released nationwide on 27^th September 2024.

Watch the trailer for My Old Ass here: