Time keeps on slippin’ (and tripping) in snappy, sappy coming-of-age My Old Ass
An uneven mix of cleverness and melodrama overtakes a drug-induced time-travel premise.
Photo: Amazon MGM
It’s easy to respect the laissez-faire approach My Old Ass takes to time travel, and even easier to fall for how quickly the coming-of-age dramedy introduces it. Elliott (18 and itching to leave home, played by Maisy Stella) chats with her older self (39 and, by virtue of being played by Aubrey Plaza, bitter about it) in the first major scene. The Elliotts look forward and back at their shared, possibly malleable life during an evening of particularly potent mushroom tea. This drug-driven introspection, kept snappy and sharp-tongued by writer-director Megan Park, frontloads the film with a fantastical conceit and co-star that both quickly fade. In the harsh, sober sunlight, My Old Ass’ selling points remain but a pleasant memory as a conventional collegebound romance unfolds.
After the effects of the psilocybin wear off, all that’s left of elder Elliott is her advice (spend time with the family; avoid any and all Chads) and her cell number, inexplicably but charmingly in service. Future Elliott becomes more explicitly a voice in present Elliott’s head, a snarky conscience haunted by hindsight and casually dropping asides about the dystopian future a stressed-out Gen Z is barreling towards. Considering that Aubrey Plaza just might not have been available much for a Sundance-bound indie like My Old Ass, the cleverness of her scant appearances almost outweighs the disappointment of only seeing her spark briefly with Maisy Stella.
Stella is excellent as the younger Elliott, making the leap from TV’s Nashville to the big screen with confidence; matching energy with Plaza isn’t a given, and her well-established grumpiness gets a playful needling from Stella’s snide-yet-still-sweet performance. Stella’s aided by a script that doesn’t try too hard to be generationally specific (being wistful about your aging parents and blinded by a summer crush never gets old) while getting the details of its lead right. She’s funny without always meaning to be, and shitty without ever meaning to be—a self-involved teenager, with both feet out her family’s loving door.
There’s a quaint charm to the sophomore film from Park (whose debut The Fallout also tapped into teen coming-of-age with uncommon realism) only deploying its Downy-soft sci-fi to color its predictable narrative. But because the moments where the Elliotts converse have such zing, the rest of My Old Ass is effectively sitting by the phone counting the minutes. We become as hooked on those calls as Elliott becomes hooked on the ultimate comfort of chatting with someone who knows for a fact how the hazy future will shake out. But unlike the adrift teen, whom the movie never quite places in a position of dependence, My Old Ass’ energy relies on returning to the Elliotts, revealing just how sapped of juice the movie is without their interplay.