My Old Ass Review: A Pleasant Surprise For My Old Ass

Ken Jones, OnScreen Blog Chief Film Critic

The summer between graduating high school and leaving for college is a weird moment in time, a definitive close of a chapter in your life and being on the cusp of a new one. My Old Ass is a comedic drama that takes place in this in-between time, a fresh and charming coming-of-age movie with some very light sci-fi elements.

Elliott (Maisy Stella) is weeks away from leaving for college. She is eager to leave and will seemingly only miss her friends in the small, lakeside Canadian town she lives in. She goes to an island with her two closest friends to get high on mushrooms on her 18th birthday. While tripping on mushrooms, she has an encounter with the older, 39-year-old version of herself, her “Old Ass” Elliott (Audrey Plaza). Elliott and Older Elliott connect, and while her older self is vague about the future, she has some clear requests and instructions for Elliott that change her summer and perspective, involving family, friends, and potential love interests.

This movie does not take the premise of getting high and conversing face-to-face with your older self too seriously. It never explains the how or the why of it all or even how it continues to work after she’s done tripping. They keep talking by text and phone calls, and when older Elliott goes silent for a while, Elliott attempts to recreate the circumstances of their first encounter, which leads to an amusing Justin Bieber riff.

While not really looking anything alike, Maisy Stella and Audrey Plaza work great off one another as versions of the same character. There are the little things like Plaza’s Elliott imploring her younger self to keep wearing her retainer, and bigger things, like avoiding someone named Chad (Percy Hynes White) but also cherishing her remaining few weeks of living at home before her entire world changes. 

Stella’s Elliott being so focused on leaving makes her distant from her family and oblivious to some important family news. Slowly and begrudgingly, she takes the advice of her older self. She starts to spend more time with her family, especially her mom (Maria Dizzia) and the oldest of her two younger brothers (Seth Isaac Johnson). In spending time with them, she learns not to take the familiar surroundings of home for granted and not to be so focused on the future as to lose sight of the present. Conversely, older Elliott dwells too much on the past, and connecting with her younger self pushes her to start living more with an eye toward the future.

The relationships that Elliott has with her two best friends, Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) feel genuine and natural, like these three people really have been best friends for their entire lives, not actors who met during the production. Percy Hynes White brings some awkward goofball energy that is also endearing in its own unique way that grows on Elliott, despite older Elliott’s warning. 

Maisy Stella, though, is the real revelation of this cast. I’d put her performance right up there with Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird and Hailee Steinfeld in Edge of Seventeen for best performances in recent memory in the coming-of-age teen movie. She handles the comedy, holding her own with Audrey Plaza, the romantic elements, and even the subtler quiet moments, like a tender heart-to-heart moment with her mom, equally well. She is someone I would buy stock in over the next few years. 

I am also interested in seeing what comes next from director Megan Park. At 38, this is only her second feature film, having previously directed The Fallout in 2021 (a film I will be seeking out too), and it’s encouraging and exciting to see another young female director hopefully making a name for herself.

As far as a few other odds and ends are concerned, it makes great use of the Canadian rural town that it is set in, with some great aerial/drone shots of the lake and the surrounding environment. It also deals with the topic of sexuality in a way that doesn’t get examined much, something akin to Chasing Amy but less raunchy. It also clocks in at less than an hour and a half in its runtime, so there is little fluff or fat that could have been trimmed and left on the cutting room floor. It also has a very effective ending.

My Old Ass was certainly not on my 2024 radar, which means it became one of the most pleasant surprises of the year for me. And pleasant is a good descriptor for the movie itself. It doesn’t overplay its hand in an aspect of the film, not too sweet or sappy; it’s just a well-balanced blend of comedy, drama, and romance that reminds you to live in the here and now, appreciate the present and not take relationships (familial, friendly, or romantic) for granted. 

My Old Ass is currently streaming on Amazon Prime after a small theatrical run earlier in the fall. Go seek this one out.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars