'My Old Ass' wins the sneakiest great movie of the year award
Aubrey Plaza gets better with age, and the 75% comedy knows when to strut its dramatic elements.
Imagine being 18 years old and getting ready to pack up all your belongings from your family’s cranberry farm/home and head for Canada, and magically being able to talk and spend time with your 39-year-old self.
That’s the predicament for the free-spirited Elliott (Maisy Stella), the kind of college-bound open-road-craving teenager who wants to have a few more experiences before her time away begins. A night of mushrooms and camping with her best friends doesn’t go the way Elliott thinks it will, leading to an encounter with her much older self (Aubrey Plaza). Welcome to the setup of one of 2024’s best films, Megan Park’s sneaky and wise My Old Ass.
Waking up next to a fire and being interrogated by Plaza’s wiser Elliott doesn’t play out like 99% of films with this setup. Instead of shrinking in the dialogue department, director Megan Park’s script sizzles when the two women separated by 21 years discuss future romantic interest no-nos, this next college phase, what awaits her in 10-15 years, and all of her choices since and following this meeting.
After all, choice is a heavy hitter in a teenager’s life. The bird flying high out of the nest for something different suddenly takes over the reins in her life. What if you could grab tips, advice, and a general compass point of view of everything laid out over the next 20 years? While framing the genre clash of romance, comedy, and just enough drama to give the second half some weight, Park creates an intelligent film that multiple generations can enjoy.
One particular element of the interactions between the Elliotts surrounds another young soul in Chad (Percy Hynes White), the boy that Plaza’s older soul warns Stella’s more willing and aggressive teen to stay away from. Instead of being the flat tire on the road to a good movie, this romantic subplot gives the film emotional juice. When I started My Old Ass, I didn’t think a comparison with Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival would suffice 90 minutes later, but here we are.
Mixed with a few ounces of a non-filtered Nicholas Sparks young love whiskey, Park’s quick and unexpectedly powerful movie knows how to construct an ending that brings the whole film together. Our lives are the sum of choices made against the backdrop of what has come and what could lie ahead, something the two women volley around throughout the movie. Stella’s earnest and energetic soul wants to ask a million questions; Plaza’s Elliot doesn’t even want to give her 10 answers, outside of applying lotion to her skin and staying away from Chad, even if he seems 110% perfect for her.
If you had told me onions would be sliced in a key final scene between the main characters before the film started, my eyes would have rolled. There haven’t been tears at a 2024 movie outside of Sing Sing; credit Park, Stella, and especially Plaza for punching above the weight of its genre expectations.
Plaza gets better with age. Certain actors acquire a knowledge of the marriage between a role, the screenplay, the director, and the movie’s intentions--or they spend their entire days in Hollywood searching. Plaza has always carried that above-ground mindset in her role choices, but it’s improved over the last five years. Even though they look a little too different to be the same person, Plaza makes you a believer during that first scene.
Stella is relatively new to the big screen, but you wouldn’t know that without an I.M.D.B. search. She sinks easily into the energetic young skin of Elliot, connecting with Plaza more organically as the movie ages. Maria Dizzia is perfect as her mom, and Kerrice Brooks makes a dent as Elliot’s trusted friend, Ro.
Go into this one with an open mind, and you may get blown away. That happened with me during a week of screeners that could have swallowed up and spit out a flick like Park’s My Old Ass, but it ended up being the best of the bunch.
The Academy Awards and other groups will most likely abandon and ignore this great movie. Outside of being immune to intelligent, non-preachy comedies, it could miss the sneakiest of Park’s My Old Ass, unfortunately. Sometimes, a movie that crawls up and smacks you lands better than one you knew would be stellar.
Film Buffa Rating: 5/5