“I’ll show you what you’re worth (that’s what I’m gonna do) If you let me inside your world.” – Canadian folk poet Justin Bieber
Elliott (Maisy Stella) is about to turn eighteen and in twenty-two days she will be leaving her home, a cranberry farm, on an island on Lake Muskoka for life in Toronto. The natural idyll has become too small to contain her dreams and aspirations which mostly seem to be, “Don’t end up as a cranberry farmer,” and “Let’s get this thing called life happening!” On the day of her birthday, she finally hooks up with her long-time crush Chelsea (Alexandria Rivera) and camps with her best friends Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler). The trio skol a brew of magic mushrooms causing Elliott to have one hell of a trip. Eighteen-year-old Elliott meets thirty-nine-year-old Elliott (Aubrey Plaza) in front of a log fire.
The two versions of Elliott share the same wry sense of humour and propensity to piss-take. Elliott senior is vaguely amused by her “young and dumb” self; brimming with the self-confidence and self-importance of being eighteen and believing the world is going to bend to her will. Elliott junior is slightly annoyed that her future self won’t give her any ‘spoilers’ about where she ends up beyond the fact she moves to Toronto and in Elliott senior’s present she’s a PhD candidate. “You’re not telling me I’m forty and still in school!” “I’m not forty, you asshole!”
Elliott of the present is a bit disappointed with Elliott of the future – she seems a tad on the boring side and she’s telling her to pay attention to her family because she can’t take anything for granted. While Ruthie is off hugging a bunny, and Ro is off doing their thing communing with the universe, Elliott is having a bad trip talking to herself who pulls her up on her bullshit. Nonetheless, she goes with it as just one of those drug things and they get on well enough – she even makes future Elliott kiss her – and says she wants to touch her old ass. “It’s my old ass!”
The next morning, she wakes up and figures it was all part of the trip until she finds a new contact in her phone ‘My Old Ass.’ She begins calling herself and occasionally meeting up with herself. All future Elliott insists upon is that present day Elliott avoid a guy called Chad, and hang out with her brothers more, even Max (Seth Isaac Johnson) the “boring one” who is going to take over the farm.
As Elliott starts packing up her life for college, she considers future Elliott’s advice and makes time for golfing with Max who tells her he won’t particularly miss her. Elliott hangs out with her delightful Saoirse Ronan obsessed youngest brother, Spencer (Carter Trozzolo) and talks to her mom Kathy (Maria Dizzia) like a human being. She even connects with Max the second time they go golfing when she realises she’s been ignoring him and making him feel like she doesn’t like him because he is the straight cis guy who likes farming and sport. Elliott works with her family on the pre-harvest and zips around the lake on her boat. She’s still hooking up with Chelsea. Everything seems to be going pretty well until she meets a charming young guy when swimming in the lake.
Chad (Percy Hynes White) upends Elliott’s world. Not only because he’s THE Chad, but also as no matter what she does to avoid him, she can’t. He’s working for her dad, Tom (Al Goulem), and he’s benignly everywhere – looking handsome and confusing her with his good-natured humour and generally being “an angel.” “He seems so harmless. I’ve never been less threatened by anyone,” she tells her older self on the phone. Future Elliott still insists he’s bad news and she’s to stay away, but Elliott doesn’t want to stay away. It’s confusing because she’s fighting two versions of herself; her older self and her present self who was convinced she was gay.
Megan Smart’s tender and hilarious coming of age tale is utterly captivating. Maisy Stella’s Elliott is the kind of teen dumbass you can’t help falling for. She’s messy, funny, filled with contradictions, selfish, and generous. As much as she needs to be out in the wider world, she still loves her little island farm and community, and it isn’t until she realises that she’s going to be saying goodbye to it forever (her parents have to sell it because of re-zoning laws) that she understands how lucky she has been to have been brought up there.
Elliott is self-sufficient, seemingly sure of herself, but she’s only eighteen. She’s far from having everything sorted out no matter how much she pretends she has. Chad is the focus of a lot of confusion: her sexuality, her trust in her future (and herself), and what it means to fall in love. “Real love is safety and freedom,” future Elliott tells present day Elliott. What does that mean and why is Chad considered neither by future Elliott.
My Old Ass is an often-poetic meditation of how people grow and let go of the small joys of their lives that helped define them but hold on to the pain. In a both reverent and irreverent style Megan Park considers the wisdom and stupidity of youth, and the hope that life can keep all the good parts. The good parts include a hallucinogenic trip with a dance number to Justin Bieber’s ‘One Less Lonely Girl’ with Elliott as J-Beebs handing a rose to Chad and organising the Saoirse poster wall for Spencer in his new bedroom (her old one). They include talking with Ro about queerness, laughing with Chad, having ‘dick sex’, and powering over the river on a little motorboat. They include learning to tell yourself that you love yourself at eighteen and at thirty-nine.
Elliott stands with Chad and says to him, “I’m really grateful for this moment with you.” That line can sum up the experience of watching My Old Ass. Gratitude for Megan Park’s warm, sexy, droll, and lovely coming-of-age tale that tells us loving someone and being loved by them is a gift – and to never waste the opportunity to feel that when it is enriching your life. My Old Ass is enriching with its wonderful casting, locations, performances, and script. To Megan Park we say thank you.
Streaming Availability:Director: Megan Park
Cast: Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza, Percy Hynes White
Writer: Megan Park
