A mushroom trip brings free-spirited Elliott face-to-face with her 39-year-old self. But when Elliott’s “old ass” delivers warnings to her younger self, Elliott realizes she has to rethink everything about her family, life, and love.
What would we ask our older selves if given the chance to talk with them? That is the central question of writer/director Megan Park’s “My Old Ass,” a coming-of-age comedy that gets at a lot of truths about childhood and adulthood and delivers a lot of laughs in the process. There’s one telling and very funny moment that speaks even louder than the rest of this surprising and perceptive film, and it involves a cell phone. On her family’s lake, where she regularly enjoys time in her motorboat, Elliott (Maisy Stella) has just discovered a phone number that cannot possibly exist in its listings. When the person on the other end of that number answers her attempted call, she responds in the only logical way: by chucking the phone right into the lake.
Stella’s performance here goes a long way toward establishing why this is the only logical reaction to that other voice because the actress, a relative newcomer to the movies after a long stint on a television series, is such a keen and talented find that we always believe Elliott in everything she does. That includes the stretches in which this character, who is a little messy, selfish, and prone to time spent with friends or on her own, doesn’t really believe in herself. She’s got a sure thing with a cute store associate, for instance, and her two best friends in the world keep telling her to go for it. Like any young adult, though, Elliott has a brain full of doubts and insecurities.
In other words, yes, this is indeed a coming-of-age comedy with a character at its center who is thoroughly relatable – not just because of the performance, but because Park’s screenplay is so adept at understanding with empathy that the quality rubs off on us, too. We can even understand why Elliott, who is leaving for college within a couple of weeks of the story’s start, doesn’t really want to spend time with her family. Her dad Tom (Al Goulem) inherited the family cranberry farm, and Elliott really doesn’t want to be tied down to a legacy like that. Her mother, Kathy (a very affecting Maria Dizzia), always wants to spend time with her daughter, but she seems on the verge of giving up on those attempts.
Elliott definitely doesn’t prefer the company of her brothers (played by Seth Isaac Johnson and Carter Trozzolo), both of whom are younger and one of whom has realized his dream of golfing on a professional level may fall to the wayside if he’s the one who will inherit the farm. She prefers being with her friends Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks). The trio enjoys gathering in that motorboat to ride the lake, which is a beautiful and tranquil stretch of water. Needless to say, they also enjoy discussing the concerns of modern youth – namely, that huge crush of Elliott’s, how far she’s willing to take it, and all the things they want to do with their crushes, if you get the meaning.
Also, they like getting high on drugs and hallucinogens, which is kind of/sort of the source of the plot’s incident. They make tea using the broth of some mushrooms, and while the drug trips for Ruthie and Ro seem to be pretty typical (Ziegler and Brooks are both hilarious here, and one does not expect a full-on musical number set to Justin Bieber), it has a much stranger effect on Elliott. More specifically, but only theoretically, she begins to hallucinate a version of herself who is on the threshold of her 40s – which Elliott insists is “middle-aged” and to which her older self vehemently objects. It’s only theoretical, though, because it’s what leads to the moment with the cell phone: The older Elliott puts her number into our Elliott’s phone and can communicate through that device.
By the way, this older version is played by Aubrey Plaza in a great performance that firmly solidifies the peculiar reason this actress is so effective at what she does. There’s a scene here where Plaza elicits a laugh in a moment of thorough sincerity while her version of Elliott is crying, an innate ability to which every actor must always aspire for the length of their entire career. Obviously, the movie from here on out consists of the older Elliott giving advice and warnings to her younger counterpart, ranging from spending time with their mom to avoiding anyone named Chad. That latter warning becomes hard to follow when the younger Elliott meets Chad (Percy Hynes-White) and begins to fall hard.
The final half-hour or so ups the ante ever so slightly for Elliott as her grasp of older Elliott’s wisdom becomes sort of an existential ticking clock, with college on the horizon, some domestic drama arises around the family farm, and her romance heating up. What was comedy segues naturalistically into drama after this turn, and “My Old Ass” becomes more than just a funny coming-of-age effort. It also has a lot to say about the reciprocal effect of the central relationship between Elliott’s younger and older selves, each of which has been seeking something from the other. The premise may be right out of a farcical playbook, but this treatment assures the film does something wholly sincere and quite moving with it.
Now Playing in Select Theaters and Nationwide Friday, September 27th
