"My Old Ass" makes for a fresh, honest, heartfelt coming-of-age film

My Old Ass (2024)

Just when you thought the familiar coming-of-age sub-genre was all dried-up and had zero new avenues to take, here comes "My Old Ass." The premise itself is very high-concept in which a drug trip on South African mushroom tea leads to a "Big" or "13 Going on 30" situation. What may sound like just a throwaway lark of a comedy is more heartfelt and emotionally tender than that, running deeper with a surprising, wise-beyond-its-years humanity. This marks actress Megan Park’s second writing-directing feature following 2022’s "The Fallout," which starred Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler as two teenage girls navigating the aftermath of surviving a high school shooting. It handled heavy material with a sensitivity and honesty, and that same approach gets carried over into Park’s sophomore effort.

Newcomer Maisy Stella is a charismatic, fresh-faced find as Elliott, a queer 18-year-old girl who’s ready to leave her family’s cranberry farm and go to college in Toronto. Rather than spend her birthday with her parents and two brothers, she camps out with her two best girlfriends for the night and get high on mushroom tea. It’s there that Elliott comes face to face with her 39-year-old self (played in only a few scenes by Aubrey Plaza). Of course, younger Elliott wants to know what her life will turn out to be, and all Older Elliott asks is that she stay away from a boy named Chad. Sure enough, she meets a boy named Chad (Percy Hynes White), a summer worker on the farm whom she can’t talking stop seeing, even though Elliott is already hooking up with a female barista.

If we all knew what we know now, the relatable desire to tell your younger self that everything will get better or that time is hard to get back is made a reality in "My Old Ass." Without making a legitimate body-swap or time-travel movie, director Megan Park (who also wrote the script) doesn’t attempt to explain the magical mechanics behind this younger-meets-older-self premise, and that’s for the better. That both versions of Elliott can text each other is also better off left unexplained; it’s just simply how it goes. The tone Park finds is pitch-perfect, grounded yet funny in a small, natural, and observant way, and wistful and sentimental but not sickly sweet. Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com

Grade: A -

Amazon MGM Studios is releasing "My Old Ass" (88 min.) in theaters on September 27, 2024.