By Sandra Hall
My Old Ass ★★★½
(MA) 89 minutes
I could call My Old Ass a bittersweet tale about first love. But I also see it as an argument for the advantages of self-love.
Maisy Stella, left, and Aubrey Plaza in a scene from My Old Ass.Credit: nna\BGossling
Its central relationship is the one between 18-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) and her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza), who appears to Elliott after she’s been tripping on magic mushrooms. The older Elliott proceeds to offer up a preview of their shared future, along with some specific advice – and a warning.
It’s an idea dreamed up by Canadian writer-director Megan Park, who made a strikingly successful debut as a director in 2021 with The Fallout, about the aftermath of a school shooting. This time, however, she’s in a relatively upbeat mood.
She has a sharp ear and a great feel for the highs and lows of adolescent drama, together with a lively if unconvincing pairing in her choice of Stella and Plaza. The two don’t bear even a remote resemblance to one another, and the headlong style with which Stella charges through her role is in direct contrast to Plaza’s modus operandi. Along with a cynical wit, the latter is an expert in the art of the deadpan response which means the older Elliott regards this unexpected conjunction of past and present as highly amusing.
She does impose a few rules, however. She’s prepared to reveal the basics about their future. Elliott Junior, for example, is appalled to know that at 39 she’ll still be studying without having found the love of her life. But her older self’s sole warning – stay away from any man called Chad – doesn’t present much of a problem. After all, she’s already decided that she’s gay.
Elliott (Maisy Stella) and Spencer (Carter Trozzolo) play siblings in My Old Ass. Credit: Marni Grossman/Prime
Then, shortly afterwards Chad (Percy Hynes White) pops up in the lake where Elliott takes her morning swim and despite her attempts to freeze him out, he remains so imperturbably amiable that she’s won over to the point at which she starts rearranging her sexual preferences.
The film is set in Ontario’s Muskoka Lakes district where Park grew up and is infused with a nostalgic glow touched with melancholy. It’s the young Elliott’s last summer before she goes to college, and she’s just learned that her parents are planning to sell the family home.
There’s a lot of fun to be had from her belated efforts to be nice to her brothers, Max (Seth Isaac Johnson), a subteen desperate to grow up and marry his crush, Saoirse Ronan, and Spencer (Carter Trozzolo), a golf nut, who’s particularly hard to crack. But her romance with Chad doesn’t have much oomph. Hynes White struggles in a role which has only one setting – niceness.
The film’s main flaw lies in the fact that there’s not enough Plaza. All the energy is centred in the byplay between the Elliotts as they become more fascinated by one another – so much so that the most emblematic scene comes when Elliott Junior asks if she can kiss her older self just so that she can see what it feels like. Not surprisingly, she’s quite pleased at the result.
My Old Ass is released in cinemas on September 26.
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