This year’s MIFF showcases a funny and charming story of love and sexual awakening in young womanhood, featuring a popular performer from the comedy world who has also done her share of dramatic acting, as well as a high concept that is delicious to consider and unpack. There’s only one thing holding My Old Ass back from being a more unqualified success: the potential dubiousness of that sexual awakening, in a film climate where the opposite sort of sexual awakening seems like a better use of the platform and the celluloid. (As if “films” are actually still made on film.)
Maisy Stella plays Elliott, a young Canadian about university age who plans to leave her family’s idyllic lakeside home where they run a successful cranberry farm handed down through the generations. Although her younger brother is keen on taking the reins of the business, Elliott herself wants to leave for the big city, where a more intellectual professional life might blossom for her, and where she is likely to find a lot more lesbians like herself. She’s got a reciprocated crush on a girl who works in the local marina, and has about three weeks more to spend in close physical contact with her. But then she’s outta there, no regrets.
One night Elliott and two friends (played by Kerrice Brooks and Maddie Ziegler) decide they’re going to camp out on an island in the lake and take mushrooms, as a bonding event in preparation for Elliott’s farewell. The everpresent fear when it comes to mushrooms is a bad trip, and even good experiences are thought to be dancing on that fine line with bad ones. For Elliott, it’s more of a weird trip. Through means that are unclear, Elliott summons the 39-year-old version of herself from approximately 20 years in the future, played by Aubrey Plaza, who sidles up next to her at the campfire and plops herself on the nearest log. Yes this might just be a hallucination. But that seems less likely when a sober Elliott discovers, the next day, that her future self has entered her phone number in Elliott’s contacts. When she calls or texts that number, future Elliott answers.
Megan Park’s film introduces a pretty sizeable high-concept conundrum here, though to its credit, it does not get stalled exploring tangential themes. For example, Elliott voices the notion that her future self should tell her the next major tech company to invest in, as it could help improve both of their lives. Future Elliott extinguishes this idea by saying she doesn’t want to trifle with whatever magic is allowing this connection to happen, and that’s basically Park saying: This is not that kind of movie.
The kind of movie it is, instead, is a wistful consideration of the ends of eras, of the reality that the only certainty in life is change. The fundamental bedrocks of our lives fall away – so do we try our damnedest to hold on to them, or do we just go with where life takes us? The lake setting for this story gives it an easy sense of nostalgia for viewers, who get that a summer on a lake is not something that can last forever, even if they haven’t had that experience themselves. Although the movie is not devoid of heavier moments, overall it has a lightness and humour to the interactions between well-drawn characters, keeping the film’s spirit feeling buoyant.
However, there’s something mildly troubling about the kind of movie this is as well. As alluded to earlier, My Old Ass contains themes of sexual awakening – but they are not about Elliott realising she’s a lesbian. She had already known that for some time. Rather, without going into too many details that aren’t revealed in the first 15 minutes, let’s just say she might be realising she is not as much of a lesbian as she once thought. And while that too is certainly some people’s real-world journey, there’s something a bit too heteronormative about exploring this as a central theme for a movie, when you have the chance to explore any theme you find worth communicating to your audience.
While there’s no doubt this choice could give a viewer pause, there’s also no doubt that everything else going on here is a delight. Plaza does not have a lot of scenes, but she brings her exceptional charisma to each one. And in case you’re inclined to grouse over this bait and switch – it seems clear Plaza could have filmed her scenes in just a few days, and likely made the film as a favour – you’ll drop that instinct as soon as you realise you get to spend the rest of the time with Maisy Stella. The Canadian singer-actress is likely new to anyone who didn’t watch the TV show Nashville, and she simply radiates.
My Old Ass has its final of three MIFF performances on Saturday, August 24th at 6:30 p.m. at Hoyts Melbourne Central. Tickets can be purchased here.