It’s a typical fantasy: the desire to go back and tell the younger version of yourself something. Steer yourself in one direction over another, maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Do this, don’t do that, and you won’t have to experience sorrow. But it’s a fantasy because no one believes it could work. If you want to get from A to C, you have to go through B, no matter how bad B might be.
That’s more or less the premise of My Old Ass, a clever coming-of-age comedy that hits like a ton of bricks.
Elliott (Maisy Stella) sneaks off with her two friends on her 18th birthday to a remote island in the Pacific Northwest to ingest some hallucinogenic mushrooms instead of sitting at home and blowing out birthday candles with her parents and two brothers. Most 18-year-olds would agree with Elliott’s decision. A lot of 39-year-olds wouldn’t. They would look back and wish they spent time with their family. At least that’s what Elliott’s 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza) says when she shows up in the middle of 18-year-old Elliott’s drug trip.
How this miracle of time travel happens is a mystery to both women — and one My Old Ass writer and director Megan Park isn’t interested in dwelling on. Thank god for that.
Following the hallucinatory meeting, the two Elliotts continue communicating via cell phone, with older Elliott occasionally dropping hints that things aren’t great in the future — apparently, the salmon will disappear in 11 years. But, much to younger Elliott’s chagrin, older Elliott won’t give her any investment advice and is cagey about specifics. The only knowledge older Elliott is willing to impart: Spend more time with your family and avoid anyone named Chad.
Younger Elliott knows no Chad, so this request is more confusing than instructive. But, spend more time with your family? Yeah, she already knows that. Elliott is leaving for the University of Toronto in a week and has entered the age where you realize things end. She hopes they won’t. She hopes she’ll go off and start a new life while the one she leaves behind continues in some parallel timeline encased in amber. But things don’t work like that. Yet, we hope.
It’s these recognizable wants that make My Old Ass as sweet, sincere and funny as it is. Park does a remarkable job disarming viewers with routine relationships and intergenerational ribbing until it’s time to drop the hammer — and what a hammer.
There’s a scene early in My Old Ass where Elliott pilots her motorboat across one of the many lakes dotting the Pacific Northwest. In the boat are her two friends, Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks), who are on their way to ingest mushrooms. The image, shot from above and set to a pop song, shows the boat swishing this way and that, slicing playfully through the shimmering water. There’s a cut, two, three, four, of the boat and the girls giggling. At first blush, the image and the editing seem conventional, clunky, even indulgent. But then Park returns to the set-up of Elliott piloting the boat twice more: the second time with another passenger, the third time with just herself. These gossamer moments only grow more significant, more precious, upon reflection.
My Old Ass isn’t a time travel movie, but a movie that wants to hold on to a specific moment in time. As one character explains — in a scene of such profound simplicity — rarely do we get to decide when something ends. Elliott’s mother (Maria Dizzia) knew exactly when that moment occurred, and it’s emotionally arrested her ever since. Elliott’s brother (Seth Isaac Johnson) can pinpoint that moment, and it’s hurt transformed him into something off-putting. There’s a way his clothing is styled and his hair is combed that seems to signal that he’s on the path to something terrible.In both scenes, Elliott listens and understands. Older Elliott’s advice isn’t without its merits.
And, yes, there is a Chad (Percy Hynes White). Why older Elliott wants her younger self to steer clear of him, I’ll leave to the movie. But that’s where your heart will break just enough to let the light in.
ON SCREEN: My Old Ass opens in theaters Sept. 27.