The marketing behind My Old Ass makes it out to be an irreverent comedy starring Aubrey Plaza as a grown woman who visits her teenage self. It’s actually a Canadian version of The Fault in Our Stars where Plaza has less than 10 minutes of screen time.
Since I already mentioned that atrocious teen movie that featured Ansel Elgort and Shailene Woodley as the least charismatic teen couple ever, you should know that when Older Elliott LeBrant (Plaza) tells Younger Elliott (Maisy Stella) to avoid any guys named “Chad” that things are going to end well. You also know that you’re in store for just another run of the mill coming of age story about teenage love featuring people that don’t exist in the real world.
And even before Plaza appears on screen, you probably would’ve already stopped watching after watching Stella’s Elliott act like an obnoxious loud-mouth brat who’s obviously already peaked and she has nothing else to do. Set on the Muskoka Lakes of Ontario, Canada, there’s never a feeling that the people in this movie are real. Elliott’s friends, Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks), become so non-essential after the first half hour, you don’t miss them.
Filmmakers still have no way of handling same-sex relationships. Younger Elliott likes Chelsea (Alexandria River), but the only scenes of them together look more like they belong on PornHub. But all that changes when Chad (Percy Hynes White), a teenage boy version of the Manic Pixie Girl trope pops up and for about five minutes, Younger Elliott avoids him before she’s falling in love with him. Younger Elliott can also text Older Elliott and talk on the phone, but when Older Elliott doesn’t answer the phone for four or five days, Younger Elliott decides she wants to do Chad because as she tells him, she’s never had “dick sex” before.
Here, writer/director Megan Park has them have sex off-screen which makes the scenes between Younger Elliott and Chelsea more exploitative. Also, Young Elliott decides to spend more time with her younger brother, Max (Seth Isaac Johnson), playing golf, which is odd because her father, Tom (Al Goulem), owns and operates a cranberry farm. Yet, this entire family seems to live in a lap of upper-middle class luxury.
Seriously, no one in this movie seems the very least believable. Stella and Plaza don’t even look like each other. Younger Elliott seems to be a problem child doing shrooms but that all is thrown out the window as she’s just a regular 18-year-old with loving, gullible parents they make the ones Ferris Bueller had seem to sadistic in their treatment.
I really wanted to like this movie. I wanted to give it a chance. Critics raved about it. I liked how it asked the question if you could go back and tell you’re 18-year-old self a few things, what would it be and would you? Also, since you know there’s going to be a major death that is going to affect you for the rest of your life and change everything, would you try to avoid it or not? Arrival did a better concept of this.
Maybe it’s because neither version of Elliott is likeable that I couldn’t find myself caring as the character lacks any empathy. I have nothing against profanity in movies but they could make sailors blush. Plaza seems to have been under the impression she was filming a different movie and her performance doesn’t mix well with the rest of the movie. I wish I could’ve gone back in time to tell myself not to waste the time with this movie. Therefore, I’m not going to waste anymore time telling you not to watch it.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 