Written by: Megan Park
Starring: Maisy Stella, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, Kerrice Brooks, Aubrey Plaza
Rating: [4/5]
With age comes life experience, as life’s trials and tribulations teach many lessons we wish we knew when younger. It makes one think what would happen if you could speak to your younger self and provide wisdom to better prepare for life. My Old Ass literally puts this to the test in a film that works on a fairly pedestrian level but ends so immaculately with its finale that everything else completely falls away.
Spending her last summer at home before heading off to college, Elliot (Maisy Stella) seeks to enjoy herself as much as she can. When taking some hallucinogenic drugs with friends in the woods, she runs into an older version of herself (Aubrey Plaza), who seeks to espouse some wisdom.
Films with great endings can leave us with such a high that any problems we had with the film can completely not matter at all with My Old Ass being a stellar example. For a film that mostly operates within a fairly pedestrian story for the majority of the runtime, the final 20 minutes of the feature are so exquisite that it left me in tears. A magic trick Megan Park pulls off in knowing how to build out her stories and deliver a complete dagger to the heart in such a satisfying manner.
With this being her film following her impressive debut with The Fallout, this feature arrived with some high expectations on my part. Tagging along with a fun premise of a young woman interacting with an older version of herself, specifically portrayed by Aubrey Plaza, and it has all of the ingredients of something fantastic. Then we get to the narrative and we see this story of Elliot and her last summer in her hometown. Nothing about this story outside of the hook brings anything necessarily new to this genre. We have this teenager who lives in this lovely small town but desperately looks forward to leaving, does not get along with her younger brother, and has bouts with the romantic entanglements that most likely will not survive the summer. She has these perfectly pleasant parents she refuses to spend time with and acts in a mostly selfish manner. Again, nothing we have not seen in other coming of age films centered on this particular stage of adolescence.
Therefore, the hook remains the best part as one would imagine, with every scene Elliot shared with her older version shedding light on what information can get passed down proving critical. The older Elliot cannot reveal too much of future events, because the younger version still has to live life unencumbered with knowing every step of her future. However, the one warning the older Elliot harps on is for her younger version to completely stay away from a guy named Chad (Percy Hynes White). This initial warning comes with no context in reference to a character we have not met yet, but when we do, it leaves the glaring question of why Elliot should avoid this person. Older Elliot remains cagey with any answers, which makes the open disdain the younger one displays with no knowledge as to why so comedic.
This warning and question remains the biggest mystery of the film, especially when she begins to spend more time inadvertently with Chad still with knowledge as to why she should steer clear of him. The build up done with the ultimate reveal takes this film to a completely different level that even has me getting emotional rethinking on how Megan Park absolutely nails the emotional catharsis. She also gets heavily aided by a tremendous performance by Aubrey Plaza. Never receiving the proper recognition for the range she can display, Plaza displays her comedic side in the early scenes but when called upon to bear the emotion required for the final 20 minutes she delivers a majestic turn that’s utterly devastating. Simply perfection, which once again gets at my assertion that this ending completely makes the film. The first two-thirds left me a bit frustrated because all of the scenes without Plaza just did not have the juice and felt fairly basic but she makes the difference and helps elevate every single scene, which made those without her lacking.
Even when doubt began to creep into my mind, Megan Park once again proves she’s an exceptional talent in her sophomore film, My Old Ass, and that I should never lose my faith in her storytelling ability. She delivers a finale so fantastic, life-affirming, and emotionally ruinous it completely changed my entire perspective of the film as a whole. Maisy Stella does a good job in carrying the majority of this film as the younger Elliot but she mostly tides us over before Aubrey Plaza comes back into the picture and completely blows the roof off of this thing.
Films with Josh 
