REVIEW: My Old Ass [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: September 13th, 2024 (Canada / USA)
Studio: Amazon MGM Studios
Director(s): Megan Park
Writer(s): Megan Park

Life will never be the same as it is right now.

Elliott (Maisy Stella) doesn’t do well on drugs. While Ro (Kerrice Brooks) dances and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) goes catatonic on hallucinogenic mushrooms, she’s stuck wondering why the high hasn’t hit. Then a stranger (Aubrey Plaza) appears next to her as though nothing is amiss. Is she a threat? A spy working for her parents? A neighbor checking in? No. Just because Elliott doesn’t do well on drugs doesn’t mean they don’t still work. This woman is the trip. She’s her from twenty-one years into the future. A mirror to help guide her big city college-bound self during what might be the most complicated month of her life.

Don’t assume Megan Park’s My Old Ass is going to stick to the premise’s usual conventions, though. The Elliotts try to by asking for stock tips and warning what not to do respectively, but Park won’t let them off that easy. Older Elliott is too worried about ruining the surprises of life to let Young Elliott deviate as wildly as getting rich would guarantee. And Young Elliott isn’t being asked to spend more time with her mother (Maria Dizzia) and brothers (Seth Isaac Johnson’s Max and Carter Trozzolo’s Spencer)—sorry, Dad (Alain Goulem)—because they’re dying soon. Older Elliott simply knows how precious those relationships are and how many days she wasted before coming to that conclusion.

The film is therefore very life-affirming. Without any big revelations or asks, Older Elliott mostly just opens Younger Elliott’s eyes to the reality we’re all a bit late in discovering ourselves. She gets to know her siblings with an intentional desire to understand them. She gets to appreciate what the family’s cranberry farm provides despite wanting to leave it behind for a future in Toronto. And she gets to experiment in love with the woman of her dreams (Alexandria Rivera’s Chelsea) as well as the man Older Elliott told her to avoid (Percy Hynes White’s Chad). It’s not that telling her “No” makes him more alluring, though. Not telling her why simply prevents him from automatic dislike.

It’s a sentimental and hopeful journey whose only real drama lies in the impossible connection shared by these two versions of Elliott. While their initial contact was the result of drugs, the film is very clear on the fact that Older Elliott is not a figment of Younger Elliott’s mind. It doesn’t explain how, but it does prove it to be true once they start talking and texting over the phone while sober. So, when Older Elliott suddenly stops responding, we can’t help but think the worst. That maybe the lost time spent with family isn’t for Young Elliott’s benefit as much as it is to compensate for Older Elliott’s regret in knowing what’s to come.

That’s not quite what’s happening, but it is a nice bit of emotional conflict to chew on that distracts us from the truth while augmenting its inevitable arrival. That truth isn’t difficult to suss out considering Young Elliott doesn’t necessarily worry too much about the absence. It actually provides her the space to figure out if Chelsea might not be the one she wants after all due to an inability to stop thinking about Chad regardless of the warning. Older Elliott’s disappearance (Plaza is not in this film very much) is thus a catalyst for Younger Elliott to continue living unencumbered. Without that voice in her ear telling her “No,” she can take the plunge and worry about consequences later.

Why? Because My Old Ass isn’t just about Younger Elliott (Stella is great in her first film role) growing up as a result of Older Elliott’s advice. It’s also about Older Elliott remembering her own definition of love being a combination of safety and freedom. Park sprinkles in a lot of humorous dialogue that makes the future seem dystopian to let us realize why Older Elliott is so worried about the safety part that she forgot about the freedom. So, Younger Elliott is both experiencing that rush of joy from living in the now and smacking her older self awake to start doing the same. Because languishing in the past is just as bad as fearing the future. The only surefire way to avoid both is to enthusiastically embrace the present.