PARK CITY – Coming up with a new twist for a teen movie ain’t easy. There have been so many over the decades that someone has likely already tried it. That’s why director and screenwriter Megan Park deserves mad props (wait, do teenagers still say that?) for the setup to “My Old Ass” which had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival this weekend. Oh, and spoiler, she then takes that concept and knocks it out of the park with one of the best coming-of-age comedies we can remember in forever (well, at least since “Booksmart”).
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Our heroine, Elliott (Maisy Stella, simply fantastic), has just turned 18. She’s spending her last summer on her family’s cranberry farm in stunning Muskoka Lakes, Ontario, Canada. She has just confessed her crush to the girl working at the local coffee shop (score) and grabs her two best friends Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) to camp out on a secluded island in the middle of the lake. Ro has brought mushrooms to celebrate Elliott’s birthday and they all take a swig of the psychedelic-infused tea unsure of what will happen. While the drug quickly grabs hold of her buddies, Elliott doesn’t feel a thing. And then something bizarre happens. Her older self, a 20-year older version of herself (Aubrey Plaza, killing it) shows up and joins her by the fire.
In any other movie, meeting your 38-year-old self would be limited to a dream sequence or a quick “Back to the Future” moment. This is the sort of idea that can easily descend into an overlong “SNL” skit. Luckily, Park is way too smart and talented to let that happen.
As they chat away, the older Elliott gives her younger self a lot of unsolicited life advice. Be nice to your mother. Hang out with your younger brothers. And, most seriously, stay away from Chad. That’s a head-scratcher for Elliott as she has no idea who that is and her older self won’t divulge anything else. But before she disappears (or modern-day Elliott falls asleep) her older self sneakily puts her number in her younger self’s phone. That’s not hard to do when her younger goes on a rant after the horror of discovering her “middle-aged” self has no wife and kids and is still in college (I mean, she’s a Ph.D. student, but that clearly doesn’t cut it).
The next day Elliott awakes thinking she just experienced a disappointingly bad trip. When she meets Chad (Percy Hynes White, unexpectedly charming), a recent summer hire for the farm, she reconsiders. Spooked, she looks in her phone for a way to contact her older self, because, hey, that’s what she would do. And there it is, a phone number under the contact name My Old Ass. When she messages the number her older self answers and the pair between regular contact either via text or on speaker phone. Neither understand how this is happening, but like the audience, they go with it. And, again and again, younger Elliott is told to stay away from Chad.
(It should be noted that Park – and maybe some Plaza ad-libbing – drop all sorts of funny one-liners about the future. Water? Salmon? Enjoy them while you can. And wait, did we just hear an air raid siren that older Elliott acts like it’s no big deal? In Toronto, no less?)
Here’s the problem with the advice younger Elliott has been given. She starts to fall for Chad. He’s kind and goofy. He’s smart, he easily bonds with her brothers and it turns out their grandparents knew each other. The problem is younger Elliott has always identified as gay. When she went to that Justin Bieber concert as a kid she wanted to be Bieber giving out the roses, not the girls getting them. What does this attraction to Chad mean? Is she bi? Is she pansexual? And why is her older self so adamant she stay away from him? The actor playing Chad may have played a creep on “Wednesday,” but he’s not giving serial killer vibes here. Then again, that’s only part of the story.
As the weeks pass before Elliott heads to the University of Toronto for college she’s hit with more surprises. And not just about Chad, either. This truly is a summer of a change.
Ultimately, not only has Park crafted an often hilarious and entertaining coming-of-age movie, but a surprise tearjerker. Kristen Correll‘s cinematography is stunning, the soundtrack is full of popular Canadian artists (although no Carly Rae Jepsen? Really?) and the entire cast delivers one way or another. And, wonderfully, Plaza is somehow able to craft her version of Elliott into a three-dimensional character in limited screen time.
The real force behind this movie is Stella, however. Without her captivating performance, the film would fall completely flat. Instead, Stella demonstrates a natural aura on screen which is exceedingly rare. It’s like you’re watching the birth of a genuine new talent on screen. You almost feel bad the movie was shot over a year and a half ago. That’s a long time for Hollywood to have to wait for it’s next new star. [B+]
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