Aubrey Plaza Looks to Shake up her Younger self’s Existential Booty
DIRECTED BY MEGAN PARK/2024
A common assessment of actress-turned-writer/director Megan Park’s thoroughly watchable dramedy My Old Ass is that it’s a decent coming-of-age film. Yes and no.
The film revolves around eighteen-year-old Elliott Labrant (singer Maisy Stella) as she prepares to go off to college, when she’ll leave the over-the-top idyllic, subtly glistening rural Ontario of her life up ‘til now; a place where she competently speedboats all over the place and whiles away the summer. Teen viewers will likely relate to or at least recognize much about the Elliott, an actively queer person seething with general anxiety by default. To celebrate, she and a few friends go camping in the nearby woods. There, they decide to take some hallucinogenic mushrooms. Cue Elliott’s “old ass” (Aubrey Plaza).
Plaza plays a pushing-forty version of Elliott. While young Elliott’s friends doze, older Elliott takes this bizarre opportunity to give herself a few pointers and tips. (She’s careful not to give too many life spoilers, for fear of unraveling everything. Or something). Frustratingly vague stuff like, “Spend more time with mom,” and “No matter what, avoid anyone named Chad”. Chad? Uh-oh, soon after this, young Elliott meets Chad (Percy Hynes White, bringing a unique energy). He doesn’t seem so bad. In fact, one might say the lanky dweeb is weirdly charming.
As for Elliott’s “old ass”, she disappears until the end of the movie. Meaning, even though Plaza dominates the film’s poster and trailer, she’s not in it very much. She’s got only two important scenes and is a voice on the phone a few times. (Young Elliott has her number saved as “My Old Ass”). While Plaza’s general absence is a disappointment, it probably helps the fact that she and Stella don’t look much alike. Mannerisms and speech patterns are, however, enough alike that we buy into the essential conceit that they’re the same person.
Raunchy in spirit but never overtly so, My Old Ass aims to reflect authentic attitudes and insecurities of today’s high school grads. It’s a production of humble means and scope, contained entirely to its “Dawson’s Creek”-like setting. It’s a very pivotal time for younger Elliott, as not only is college on the horizon, but so is this guy, Chad. Regarding him, less is made of Elliott’s inner grapple with her own sexuality than one might assume normal. Dangit, she likes him. What’s that all about? But she must avoid him at all costs. Will Elliott listen to herself?
Obviously, there’s a lot of self-actualization and re-actualization going on here. But for all of that, My Old Ass is ultimately a coming-of-age comedy (though one that’s only occasionally chuckle-worthy) secondly to its primary takeaways of later-life regrets and instincts of self-protection. It’s worth noting that Megan Park is close in age to the Plaza Elliott, not the Stella version. The denouement is a resonant one, and perhaps not as obvious as one may suspect. In this, My Old Ass gets off its middling rump to itself into shape… just long for regret to be felt that maybe more couldn’t have been done.