By Sofia Webster, Co-Deputy Editor
My Old Ass follows the story of a newly 18-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella), who upon trying mushrooms for the first time finds herself talking with her 39-year-old self (played by the ever-comedic Aubrey Plaza) who offers warnings on what to do and what to avoid in hindsight. This forms the basis of a transformative summer for Elliott before leaving for university in Toronto.
The thought of meeting your 39-year-old future self at the ripe age of eighteen sounds exciting if not daunting for most of us. Through watching My Old Ass, viewers can see the gradual process of how this experience affects teenage Elliott as she learns to grapple and accept the wisdom of trusting the timing of her life and finding the strength to acknowledge the mistakes that she might make along the way. This altogether makes for a heartfelt, introspective, and consistently funny watch.
Stella’s Elliott finds herself talking to her older self in the form of Aubrey Plaza whilst on a 18th birthday camping trip where her and her friends find themselves on mushrooms. The film offers a handful of hilarious moments between the two ‘versions’ of Elliott as they are just as confused as the other when they meet for the first time.
Stella’s Elliott is an intelligent and sassy queer teenager who finds herself caught in a dilemma when she meets Chad (played by Wednesday’s Percy Hynes White) and has to decide whether to follow what her future self is advising in hindsight or to live life regardless of the outcome and follow her heart.
Whilst Plaza has solidified herself as a pro in the comedic genre through roles on sitcoms like Parks and Recreation and films like Safety not Guaranteed (2012), newcomer Maisy Stella takes on her first leading role and does a fantastic job in suggesting otherwise. I have no doubt she will be gracing our screens at some point in the near future as she brought a great amount of relatability to a role that is far from usual – a teenager growing up on her family’s cranberry farm in rural Ontario.
Although I massively enjoyed the film, I would say the ending could have been crafted to a slightly higher standard. Considering how strong the rest of the film is, the ending felt slightly too formulaic for a film with such a distinct storyline that ventures itself away from your standard rom-com in an interesting way. Despite this, I found the film to have a very sweet message, and director Megan Park does a great job of capturing Elliott’s wild and imaginative spark amongst the rural setting of a Canadian cranberry farm.
The film offers a unique storyline. Morphing the sci-fi aspect of meeting your future self into the quirky and corny romantic comedy ‘young love’ genre is most definitely a gamble that not many films have taken in the past. However, I felt it offered a great balance of the emotional and the comedic at the perfect moments and should definitely be one to watch either currently in cinemas or on streaming platforms when released.
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