An 18th-birthday mushroom trip brings Elliott face-to-face with her wisecracking 39-year-old self who starts handing out warnings about what her younger self should and shouldn’t do. A film by Megan Park, starring Maisy Stella, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, Kerrice Brooks, Maria Dizzia, Alexandria Rivera, Al Goulem, Seth Isaac Johnson, and Aubrey Plaza.
MY OLD ASS
Megan Park
(2024)
On the evening of her 18th birthday, Elliott’s family — mother Kathy (Maria Dizzia), father Tom (Al Goulem), and brothers Max (Seth Isaac Johnson) and Spencer (Carter Trozzolo) — waits for her to come home with a surprise birthday cake. However, Elliott has other plans to celebrate her birthday with her best friends.
Elliott (Maisy Stella) stops by the local coffee shop where Chelsea (Alexandria Rivera) works. She reveals to her friends Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) that she and Chelsea have been flirting with each other since eighth grade. Elliott then tells Chelsea that she’s leaving town in 22 days and confesses that Chelsea is one of the things she’ll really miss about this place. The two then become intimate.
Elliott drives her boat across Muskoka Lakes with her friends Ro and Ruthie to a camping ground on Maude Island where they plan to spend the night together. The three of them take hallucinogenic mushrooms that Ro has brought along to celebrate Elliott’s birthday. As they begin to trip, each person has a different experience – Ro starts dancing on her own, Ruthie falls off the log she’s lying on, but Elliott becomes disappointed when she doesn’t feel the effects at all.
Suddenly, Elliott is startled when a strange woman appears out of nowhere and starts talking to her. The woman tells Elliott that Elliot took a bunch of musrooms and summoned her here. The woman then reveals that she is Elliott’s 39-year-old future self (Aubrey Plaza). Young Elliott becomes genuinely excited and asks a lot of questions, specifically about the problems that old Elliott wants to fix.
What is the point of this conversation if you can’t give me some solid advice and then I can just make our life better? You’re telling me that wouldn’t fix at least a couple of your problems? Or is our life just so flawless and perfect, you don’t want to change anything?
However, old Elliott only gives her a cryptic warning to avoid anyone named Chad. That night, old Elliott discreetly puts her phone number in young Elliott’s phone before disappearing.
The next day, Elliott goes swimming naked in a nearby pond after work. To her shocking surprise, she encounters a boy (Percy Hynes White) there, whom she’s never seen before. The boy explains that this is his first day working at her father’s cranberry farm. Elliott finds him unexpectedly attractive, which is a new experience for her, as she has been interested in girls her whole life. However, when she learns the boy’s name is Chad, she becomes spooked and quickly gets out of the pond, hurriedly dressing and rushing away.
As Elliott walks away, she suddenly remembers that her future self had played with her phone the night before. She quickly pulls out her phone and starts searching through the contacts. Eventually, she finds the one her older self had added, listed under the name “MY OLD ASS”. Elliott takes her boat out to the middle of the lake, where no one is around, before deciding to send a message to “MY OLD ASS” about meeting Chad. But just as she hits send, a reply comes in referencing the fake name she had given to Chad. Panicked that her future self is real and not just a hallucination, Elliott frantically throws her phone into the lake.
Elliott fishes her phone out of the lake and is shocked to discover that not only can she send and receive messages to her older self, but she can actually call her and talk directly. Elliott begins to follow the advice of her future self, which includes hanging out more with her siblings, playing golf with her brother Max, and being nice to her mother.
Meanwhile, Elliott finds herself growing closer to Chad, but each time she starts to develop stronger feelings for him, she inexplicably pushes him away. Frustrated, Elliott tries asking her older self about Chad – she can’t find anything wrong with him, but her future self continues to avoid giving her a clear explanation, only repeating the cryptic warning to stay away from him.
Written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Megan Park, MY OLD ASS is a quirky and hilarious comedy drama that centers around Elliott, a teenage girl who accidentally encounters her older self from the future while tripping on hallucinogenic mushrooms. The impossible encounter becomes the transformative experience of her summer.
The screenplay is expertly crafted, and the cinematography is stunning. Every supporting cast member delivers a believable performance. While the narrative is well-paced and delightful from start to finish, some relationships feel a bit too brief. For instance, the connection between Elliott and her parents, Kathy and Tom — wonderfully portrayed by Maria Dizzia and Al Goulem — could benefit from a longer scene or perhaps multiple scenes.
You were such a terrible sleeper. I had to rock you for ages, and you were so specific in what you wanted. But I remember one night, you turned to me and you just said, “Crib.” And so, I put you down and you looked at me and you smiled. And then you rolled over and you fell asleep. And I was so proud of you ’cause you didn’t need me to get you to sleep anymore. But, at that moment, I also realized that I wasn’t going to get to rock you anymore.
Maisy Stella looks incredible on screen as she perfectly embodies Elliott’s character, radiating presence in every scene. Percy Hynes White equally delivers an impressive performance as Chad, and the chemistry between them makes their relationship feel authentic. Their dialogue on the boat is sublime; I can envision myself listening to them talk for hours without getting bored.
Do you remember the last time you went out with friends as a kid and just played pretend the whole day? Do you remember the very, very last time you ever did it?
Aubrey Plaza delivers her usual outstanding and hilarious performance, to the point that I sometimes can’t tell if she’s acting or simply being herself. I find it hard to imagine Maisy Stella growing up to be Aubrey Plaza, as Plaza’s unique quirkiness is something that can’t easily be replicated — she was born with it.
The only aspect I didn’t like about this film is the plot twist that the filmmaker tries to conceal by not revealing to viewers or Elliott the crucial reason why older Elliott doesn’t want her younger self to fall in love with Chad. It’s too easy to predict, so I don’t understand why the film chooses to hide this information.
Both entertaining and heartwarming, MY OLD ASS easily stands as one of my favorite films of 2024. I highly recommend it.
If you weren’t young and dumb, you’d never fucking be brave enough to do anything. If you knew how shitty and unfair life would be, you’d never leave your house.
MY OLD ASS premiered at Sundance Film Festival on 20 January 2024. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States on 13 September. It was made available on Amazon Prime Video on 7 November.
