Megan Park has followed her SXSW-winning The Fallout with a coming-of-age comedy, My Old Ass, starring Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza.

Unlike her first feature, Park opts for a lighter fare this time around. This isn’t to say that it doesn’t get emotionally heavy at times because it definitely does. But for the most part, Park goes for comedy more often than not. Still though, the sophomore feature is never a guarantee for female filmmakers. More often than not, female filmmakers end up being one-and-done because their first film fails and they can’t get financing. Despite The Fallout premiering during the pandemic, it made its way onto HBO Max in early January 2022. The rest is history. Plus, it can’t hurt having Margot Robbie on board as a producer for the sophomore film!

Rather than celebrate her 18th birthday with her family, Elliott (Maisy Stella) celebrates with best friends Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks) by getting high on mushrooms. To say that she goes on quite the trip would be an understatement. Her two best friends are on major trips. Against all odds, Elliott meets her 39-year-old (Aubrey Plaza). Older Elliott is wiser in ears and warns her younger self about what not to do, even entering her number in younger Elliott’s phone. She didn’t even think it will work but it does–warning shots are fired when younger Elliott meets the mysterious Chad (Percy Hynes White).

Older Elliott isn’t really talkative when it comes to the subject of Chad, which makes you wonder if there’s more to the mystery here. Younger Elliott takes all of the new advice into account, rethinking her life prior to leaving for the University of Toronto. The last few weeks of summer see Elliott spending more time with her family. Oh yeah, she also begins developing feelings for Chad, which also means she isn’t a lesbian like previously thought. Sexuality can be weird. No, really. There’s also the fact that her older self had warned her about Chad. Chad isn’t the only warning but everything else seems miniscule.

Without having watched the trailer or read the synopsis going into the screening, the film was a lot different than what I expected. I expected that it would mostly be the two Elliotts taking up the bulk of the screen time. Instead, we get this whole subplot dealing with the mysterious Chad. I still want to get a better idea of just how this whole “time travel by drugs” thing works. Older Elliott is not a hallucination but is somehow real! The film doesn’t come out and say that it is time travel. But that said, it has to be something! Anyway, the film really throws a curveball at the coming-of-age genre.

My Old Ass puts a breath of fresh air into the coming-of-age genre with solid performances from Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza.

DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER: Megan Park
CAST: Maisy Stella, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, Kerrice Brooks, and Aubrey Plaza

Amazon MGM Studios releases My Old Ass in theaters on September 13, 2024. Grade: 4/5

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