It’s one of those interview questions asked of confident, accomplished women time and again: What advice would you give your younger self? Megan Park’s My Old Ass riffs on that stock question, but with a smart, perceptive twist: instead of treating the younger self as a clueless naif, it recognizes that teenagers often have more emotional resilience than even they recognize.
Freewheeling, mildly reckless Elliott (Nashville’s Maisy Stella) can’t wait for her life to start: in just a few weeks, she’ll leave her family’s Ontario farm for college in Toronto. The last thing she wants to be, she says, is a third-generation cranberry farmer, even if the idyllic, woodsy, lakeside setting of her life so far looks like the sort of place most people would want to rush toward. Still, she’s making the most of her last days on her home turf, tootling around the lake in her rusty motorboat, striking up a last-minute romance with a cute girl, and heading off to an adorably spooky island to sip dubious-looking shroom tea with her best friends (played by Maddie Ziegler and Kerrice Brooks).
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]That mushroom tea is more than a little magic: while her friends are off having your average, noodle-dance trip, Elliott finds herself sitting on a log, engrossed in deep discussion with a woman who claims to be her 39-year-old self (played by the luminously sardonic Aubrey Plaza). Older Elliott has lots of advice for the younger version: Wear your retainer. Spend more quality time with the family. And whatever you do, when you meet a guy named Chad—run.
Elliott is pretty sure she’s gay. Enter Chad (Percy Hynes White), a lanky, goofball swain with a great, rubbery smile. She tries to run, but Chad turns out to be unavoidable, much to the dismay of older Elliott (who, defying all known rules of time and space, has programmed her number into younger Elliott’s cell phone).
My Old Ass is a bit crazy. It’s also winning, in the gentlest, sweetest way. Park’s second feature (following her 2021 debut, The Fallout) is a pleasingly casual little movie that asks big questions in loopy, unfinished sentences. What teenager doesn’t want to race toward the future? My Old Ass urges us to look back at the people we used to be, blurry and impatient, people who just couldn’t wait to become—us.
