My Old Ass

There is a specific, sun-drenched arrogance that belongs exclusively to an eighteen-year-old on the verge of leaving home. It’s that fleeting window where you feel like the protagonist of a movie that hasn't started its second act yet. Megan Park (who previously gave us the gut-wrenching The Fallout) captures this feeling so acutely in My Old Ass that it made me want to go back and apologize to my own parents for every eye-roll I performed in 2008. I watched this while eating a granola bar that was three weeks past its best-before date, and the slightly stale crunch matched the rustic Ontario woods perfectly.

The Ghost of Christmas Future (With Better Sarcasm)

The premise sounds like a high-concept logic puzzle: Elliott, played with a magnetic, raw energy by Maisy Stella, celebrates her 18th birthday by taking mushrooms in a cranberry bog. Instead of seeing colors or talking to a tree, she encounters her 39-year-old self, played by the dry, incomparable Aubrey Plaza. It’s a setup that could have easily spiraled into a "Back to the Future" riff or a "Freaky Friday" style body swap, but Park keeps the stakes refreshingly grounded and emotional.

The older Elliott doesn’t have a sports almanac or a quest to save the world; she just has a few warnings. One of them is a directive to avoid a guy named Chad (Percy Hynes White). In an era of multiverse fatigue where every "time travel" movie involves saving the literal fabric of reality, it’s a relief to see a film where the biggest threat is just making a choice you’ll regret for twenty years. The chemistry between the two Elliotts—delivered mostly via voice memos and hallucinated FaceTime calls—is the backbone of the film. Aubrey Plaza (seen recently in Emily the Criminal and The White Lotus) manages to hold back her signature chaotic energy just enough to reveal a woman who is genuinely mourning the girl she used to be.

The Art of the Indie Hustle

What makes My Old Ass stand out in the 2024 landscape is its pedigree as a genuine indie success story. Produced by Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment—the same powerhouse that brought us Barbie and Saltburn—this film shows what happens when you give a sharp director a modest $3 million and total creative freedom. It’s a "vibe" movie in the best sense of the word, shot over 23 days in the Muskoka region of Ontario.

The film premiered at Sundance and immediately sparked a massive bidding war, eventually selling to Amazon MGM for a whopping $15 million. It’s a classic festival-to-streaming pipeline success, but unlike many "content" drops, this one feels like it was crafted for the big screen. The cinematography by Kristen Correll makes the Canadian summer look like a dream you’re slowly waking up from. The supporting cast, particularly Maddie Ziegler and Kerrice Brooks as Elliott’s best friends, creates a social circle that feels lived-in rather than scripted. It is a movie that actually understands that teenagers are mostly lovable idiots, rather than the hyper-articulate philosophers we usually see on Netflix.

Wisdom From the Other Side

As the "summer of Elliott" progresses, the sci-fi hook of the older self starts to fade into the background, making room for a poignant drama about the terror of leaving childhood behind. Maisy Stella, who many might recognize from her years on Nashville, is a revelation here. She has to carry the emotional weight of a girl realizing that her "annoying" family—including a wonderfully understated Maria Dizzia—are actually the people she's going to miss the most.

The film handles the "advice from the future" trope with a surprising amount of restraint. It doesn't offer easy answers or a magical fix for growing up. Instead, it suggests that even if we could talk to our older selves, we’d probably still make the same mistakes because those mistakes are what make us us. Percy Hynes White plays a character named Chad who is, miraculously, not a total 'Chad,' providing a romantic subplot that feels earned rather than forced. By the time the film reaches its conclusion, it moves away from the "wisecracking ghost" energy and lands in a place of genuine, quiet heartbreak.

My Old Ass is a rare contemporary gem that uses a "high concept" to tell a very small, very human story. It circumvents the typical tropes of the coming-of-age genre by focusing on the relationship we have with our own potential. It’s funny, it’s beautifully shot, and it features a pair of performances from Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza that will stick with you long after the credits roll. If you’ve ever looked at an old photo of yourself and wished you could whisper a few words of warning—or just a "hang in there"—this is the movie for you.