Would you make out with your older self? Aubrey Plaza’s queer comedy ‘My Old Ass’ explores life’s biggest questions
What would you want to know if you came face-to-face with your future self? (Besides the obvious: Wait, how am I talking to you right now?)
Would you ask them about your romances and relationships—who to pursue and who to steer far, far away from? Would you ask for advice in hope or finding a way to avoid mistakes or heartbreak?
Would you ask to make out?
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That’s the central hook of the delightfully titled My Old Ass, a charming, queer, coming-of-age comedy with a bit of a supernatural twist.
Written and directed by Megan Park (who previously helmed 2021’s harrowing high school drama The Fallout), My Old Ass is the story of Elliott Labrant (Nashville‘s Maisy Stella), a teen living one last summer of childhood on her family’s cranberry farm before she moves away to Toronto for college, when real life is supposed to begin.
In celebration of her 18th birthday, Elliott spends a night camping with her best friends Ruthie (Dance Moms‘ Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (newcomer Kerrice Brooks), when the girls decide to try mushrooms for the first time.
While tripping, she appears: Elliott’s 39-year-old self, played by the acerbically witty Aubrey Plaza.
Sure, there’s some initial confusion—this is a hallucination, right?—but that soon gives way to curiosity as Elliott grills herself with all sorts of questions. The older Elliott is reticent to give too much away, though she does offer some advice, including the ominous: “Avoid anyone named Chad.”
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Well, the next day, the mushroom trip is over and older Elliott is gone. But when our teen heroine returns home, who turns up but a young, gangly guy named Chad (Wednesday‘s Percy Hynes White), there to work on the farm for the rest of the summer.
Surely there’s nothing to worry about, right? Elliott’s identified as a lesbian ever since she was old enough to have a crush, so definitely Chad doesn’t seem like her type. Though the more time they spend together, the more she begins to question everything she thought she knew about herself.
Oh yeah, and apparently older Elliott put her number in younger Elliott’s cell during the mushroom trip, so the two can continue to communicate via phone?
Look, you could question the logic, but then you’d be missing out on one of the more winning coming-of-age stories in recent years, one that’s hilarious and heartfelt with some pretty progressive ideas about the fluidity of sexuality, and featuring yet another killer performance from Plaza.
A major crowd-pleaser at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (and one of this writer’s favorites of the fest), My Old Ass was swooped up by Amazon MGM Studios and is headed to U.S. theaters beginning September 13.
Check out the first official trailer for the film below:
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