‘My Old Ass’ Review: You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone

You’d think that if you were a teenager, and your older self materialized to you in the form of the one and only Aubrey Plaza, you’d be pretty excited to meet her. But in “My Old Ass,” it takes 18-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) a little persuading to get used to the idea.

A few weeks before Elliott moves to Toronto for college, she and her friends take shrooms for the first time and she comes face to face with her 39-year-old self in what she believes to be a drug-induced hallucination. After she gets over the initial shock, she starts asking questions; What’s our future like? Are we happy? Tell me something good!

When Elliott learns that at 39 she will be single and still in school getting her PhD, her excitement quickly fades. Honestly? She’s a little embarrassed.

“Did you honestly think that you were gonna have multiple kids and your dream job by the time you were 40?” older Elliott scoffs in disbelief. After a slight pause, she relents, because of course that’s what younger Elliott thought. And by virtue of them being the same person, older Elliott knew this already.

Like Elliott, so many of us believe when we’re 18 that by the time we’re 40, we’ll have it all figured out (multiple women sitting in my theater audibly answered, “Yes!” when Elliott asked this question). The idea that 18 is a turning point in our lives, that everything will be so much better once we’re older, is not exactly a new concept for a coming of age film. But where “My Old Ass” plays into those tropes, it executes them remarkably well. And where it doesn’t, it flips the script in a unique way. Writer/director Megan Park has crafted a warm, funny and heartfelt take on the genre with a star-making performance from Stella at the center.

When it becomes clear that older Elliott’s appearance in teen Elliott’s life is not just a one-time, shroom-based event, the elder decides to try and fix her own life by giving out some advice. Some of that advice is fairly generic – spend more time with your family, don’t take your hometown for granted, etc. But there’s one, more specific request: If you meet anyone named Chad, stay away from him at all costs.

At first, teenage Elliott is positive this won’t be a problem. She has only ever been attracted to women, and she already has a summer fling going with the girl of her dreams. But when she meets Chad, who’s working on her parents’ farm for the summer, her feelings and her older self’s advice come into conflict.

“My Old Ass” deals in the usual themes that coming-of-age stories do, but Park manages those tropes delicately and has enough unique flair and references as a writer to set the film apart. So much of older Elliott’s advice revolves around how much time teenage Elliott spends with her family, particularly her mother Kathy (rendered tenderly by Maria Dizzia). In one scene, Kathy lingers in Elliott’s doorway as she packs for college, attempting to make small talk despite Elliott’s obvious lack of interest. But as disinterested as she is, there’s no stereotypical teenage eye rolling, no meanness on Elliott’s part, no nagging on Kathy’s. There’s no antagonist here. Like any teenager, Elliott is just too busy worrying about the future and her own problems to take notice of anyone else – too wrapped up in herself to realize that her mother just wants to talk to her.

As the teenaged Elliott, Stella has an endearing sort of nerve to her performance, expressive and quick to laugh. Elliott tends to barge into any situation with the full force of her personality, sometimes literally (in one scene she confronts her father about something by walking full speed ahead into a pond with all her clothes on). She’s brash and funny, the type of heroine you immediately want to root for. She’s also apt to be incredibly vulnerable, a noticeable difference from her older self, who’s guarded more often than not – an unavoidable side effect of getting older.

It takes a lot to pull Elliott up short, but Chad (Percy Hynes White) does from the moment they meet. The chemistry between the two is undeniable, and Chad himself is so disarmingly kind, it’s easy to forget about older Elliott’s warning. But part of what “My Old Ass” is exploring is whether the warning is needed – not because avoiding Chad wouldn’t save Elliott some pain in the future, but because avoiding risk isn’t really living. Older Elliott has the upper hand, the life experience, when it comes to most things, and the wisdom she imparts to younger Elliott about slowing down, spending time with your family while you can, is good advice.

But where “My Old Ass” is different from other films in the genre is how it’s not just a coming-of-age for teen Elliott, but for 39-year-old Elliott too. You gain wisdom about so many things as you age, but you tend to lose a little bit of your ability to leap. Elliott might make stupid, teenage mistakes, and she might be a little too young to notice when her mom wants to hang out with her, or how much her younger brothers love her. But she’s just young enough to not be afraid. And maybe that’s something she can’t afford to lose.

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