By – Gareth Jones

For fans of Aubrey Plaza, coming-of-age stories, comedies that make you think

Megan Park is a surprising writer/director.  I say this out of my own bias.  She is a Canadian former teenage actor who starred in shows on Disney and ABC Family.  In addition, she was in a band with Brandi Cyrus.  Not where you would typically expect an independent witty writer/director to emerge from, but as I said that is my fault in the judgement.  She has now written and directed two thoughtful films, the first about the effects of a school shooting, The Fallout, starring Jenna Ortega, and now My Old Ass starring Maisy Stella in her first film and the always brilliant Aubrey Plaza.

The film presents a simple question.  What would you tell your younger self?  Would you tell them to go somewhere or do something specific?  In this case, Elliott (Stella), a teenage girl at the end of high school is about to leave her family cranberry farm for the big city.  She thinks she is a lesbian and decides with her friends to have a night of mushrooms before she leaves.  On this mushroom-induced trip she encounters her older 39 year-old self, played by Plaza.  As with many films with a premise like this, they initially try to figure out why this is happening, and what rules they need to follow, such as is it okay to kiss yourself?  Older Elliott is cynical and does not want to ruin anything in young Elliott’s life so she only gives her two pieces of advice. First, spend more time with your family on the farm before you go. Second, avoid a boy named Chad. We meet Chad soon enough and he is portrayed by up and coming actor Percy Hynes White, recently seen in the Netflix series, Wednesday.  Chad is not what Elliott expects and his philosophy sets the tone for the remainder of the film.  That philosophy is based on the knowledge that we as humans never know when we will do something for the last time.  We know we will die, but we have no idea when we will see a band for the last time or play tennis with a friend.  As such, Chad approaches life with the attitude that every time we experience something it could be the last, so he might as well enjoy and appreciate it.  Definitely, a message that resonates.

In a twist, they are able to still communicate with each other the next day after young Elliott awakens from her drug experience through their cell phones.  As an audience, we have to go with this set of workarounds for the story.  I was able to accept the rules of this world. It was not any harder than trying to figure out the rules of the Back to the Future trilogy.  Like those films, encountering older versions of people is a powerful tool to ask the audience to examine their own relationships and past.  Of course, as someone on the other side of 50, I am prone to much more nostalgia than younger generations, but I strongly believe that this film is for multiple generations.  Young, old, and in between can find ways to connect with the characters and concepts.

This is made possible through the excellent acting of the whole cast.  Stella and Plaza have a natural connection that allows the audience to sympathise with both sides of the same character.  In particular, Plaza shows her range and abilities.  Similar to her performance in The White Lotus, she is able to bring nuance and depth in spite of initial judgements of her just being a cynical, snarky person.  This performance and the ideas in the film are even more profound with the recent death of Plaza’s husband.  Obviously, this film came out much before that but my experience with the film was substantially influenced with that knowledge.

Available to stream on Amazon Prime