My Old Ass Review: A Diamond in the Rough!

Megan Park graduated from actress and musician to film director in 2021 with her impactful adolescent drama The Fallout starring Jenna Ortega. It won three awards at SXSW and positioned her as a director to watch. Park’s second feature My Old Ass premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, which was then bought by Amazon MGM Studios as a film focusing on the rising generation of young adults set in the late 2010s. As Gen Z has become a more prominent part of our world, from teenagers to mid-20s, the changing technological landscape has made cinema less attractive to the Tik-Tok generation, who find more of an interest in binge-able TV shows and short video entertainment.

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This may have caused filmmakers to avoid developing deeper and more insightful projects for this generation because of their differentiating tastes in entertainment. This often results in quick release streamers that last a couple days on the charts before sinking into the streaming abyss.

Megan Park is one of the few filmmakers working today with the interest and insight to connect with younger audiences and give them films that they not only see themselves in, but give them emotional depth and appreciation for the medium. My Old Ass is a loveable and charming film with a warm yet striking balance of laughs and emotions that make it one of the most enjoyable scripts this year.

Elliot (Maisy Stella) and her best friends Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks) are ready to enjoy the summer together before college in the fall. In the last few weeks before their lives diverge they take a camping trip into the woods to try hallucinogenic mushrooms together. As Ro and Ruthie experience “good trips” Elliot is startled to realize she has conjured up her 39 year old self (Aubrey Plaza) in the process. Older Elliot cautions her about some of the most important decisions she will make in her life, leading younger Elliot to experience a series of events that will change her perspective on family, time, and love.

My Old Ass feels like a diamond in the ruff of Gen Z cinema with its subtle yet tender portrayal of a young torn between her future and Aubrey Plaza’s character trying to dismantle the past to move forward. As a millennial filmmaker, Megan Park provides compassionate insight through Plaza’s Elliot while collaborating with her younger talent on the film to touch on the universal and specific elements their lives consist of.

What results is a kindhearted portrayal of Elliot’s character. She has enough teenage rebellion to want to explore the world outside of her home but enough unconditional love for her family that rings true for a smaller farming town girl in Canada. Maisy Stella has a fantastic presence that makes Elliot a darling character to witness while Aubrey Plaza’s performance beautifully encapsulates a witty and personable woman with a deeper sadness underneath her exterior.

My Old Ass is a film that breathes new life into its coming-of-age themes through its sci-fi direction of parallel versions of Elliot living in the same timeline. This allows it to explore generational themes of wisdom in which we can learn from ourselves and others in every stage of life. It opens up the conversation of there being no age prerequisite for showing wisdom, displaying how youth and imagination can teach us just as much as life experience as we grow.

As much as young Elliot becomes open to life’s changes and hard hits, older Elliot finds peace in her conversations with her younger self. The film wears its heart on its sleeve with comparable influences to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind through the character’s desires to experience love in spite of pain, while maintaining its own clear unique identity in the process.

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The serene cranberry farm setting paints a beautiful light as the film radiates life into its characters and sequences. Megan Park has a way of making movies for the youth in a fitting way, maintaining her knowledge as a millennial to display understanding and tenderness towards a younger generation. Her ability to learn as much from her young talent as they can learn from her is a perfect balance for a film that portrays just that. It clearly shows Park’s desire to tell a story that feels personal to her while allowing audiences to walk with her and find their own personal attachment to the script.

My Old Ass’ viewings get even better with time (having watched it twice already) and will be a film to return to anytime one wishes to feel emotions, to reconnect with themselves, and find joy in imagination again.

‘My Old Ass’ Rating – 4.5/5

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