My Old Ass dodges the usual time-travel movie problems, with good reason

The gimmick at the center of Megan Park’s dramedy My Old Ass is grabby: On the night of her 18th birthday, a teenager blows off her family birthday celebration to go do drugs in the woods. There, she encounters an adult version of herself, and promptly proceeds to rag on herself for being so old. (The other version of her is just 39.) Seeing a confident teenager and her older self playfully butt heads over future job prospects and appearances is already funny. But woven through the Oh my God, is this what I’m going to be like when I’m OLD?! back-and-forth is a powerful movie about growing up.

Writer-director Megan Park (The Fallout) uses a high-concept plot to drill in on specific emotions and experiences, while dodging genre trappings and specifics about time travel. Skimping on the sci-fi mechanics while leaning into the emotions created by the situation lets her craft My Old Ass into a contemplative coming-of-age story — one that perfectly encapsulates the feeling of that one last carefree adolescent summer before everything changes.

[Ed. note: This piece contains light setup spoilers for My Old Ass.]

Maisy Stella (ABC’s musical drama Nashville) plays Elliott, a confident young woman with big dreams of leaving her family’s cranberry farm behind when she goes to University of Toronto in the fall. While tripping on hallucinogenic mushrooms, she’s visited by an older version of herself (played by Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza), who offers her some advice about this very transitory time in their life. The two manage to keep up a correspondence via cell phone, with older Elliott trying to guide younger Elliott without giving away too much about the future. Her biggest warning: Stay away from Chad (Percy Hynes White), the charming boy who’s working at her family’s farm over the summer.

Throughout the movie, it’s a little ambiguous about whether actual time travel is occurring, or Elliott is just experiencing a side effect of her psychedelic trip. But that blurry line means Park doesn’t have to sweat over paradoxes or otherwise waste time laying out the rules of time travel. To young Elliott, chatting up her 20-years-older self is just a random, weird thing that’s happening, and she’s rolling with the punches. They never really interrogate the larger space-time consequences of the experience, or worry that they might break reality by touching. Which is a good thing, because Park uses the time-travel element as a tool to really hammer home the bittersweetness of growing up.

Young Elliott is confident about her place in the world, and Stella imbues the character with a particular brash brightness. When she starts to question what she’s taken for granted about herself and her family, and what that means for the future, her performance comes with a tangible vulnerability. Meanwhile, Plaza nails the older, more world-weary version of the character — but one who’s never too jaded or cynical. The two of them share some wonderful banter: It’s a testament to their chemistry that a lot of their interaction happens via phone, and yet it never feels stilted or shortchanged.

Older Elliott doesn’t share specific details about the future with her younger self, with good reason: She wants to let younger Elliott experience surprise at everything life has to offer. Her vague words of advice — effectively, slow down and spend more time with her family while she can — could be overused adages. But because they’re so universal, they can also apply to Elliott’s specific situation, like how she feels like she’s too good for her family’s cranberry farm. And the nebulous warning older Elliott delivers about that cute boy also could be a cliché — except that until she meets Chad, Elliott has only been attracted to girls. It’s a refreshing take on a coming-out story, and it makes older Elliott’s warnings even more intriguing, especially as younger Elliott and Chad clearly hit it off.

Beyond the time-travel setup, My Old Ass’s most immediate hook is the leads and their easy rapport. This movie could have just been a collection of hijinks and jokes about touching your older self’s butt. But Park uses the timey-wimey elements to craft a story about those unheralded last moments, the ones we don’t realize will be watersheds on the way to growing up. Younger Elliott is eager to leave everything behind and move on to her next great adventure, but older Elliott is able to offer some perspective. At the same time, older Elliott gets to savor her bygone youth and tap into the days of being a fearless teenager who could conquer the world. My Old Ass is about growing up — the joy, the pain, and those little moments that resonate with us far longer than we think they will — and Park smartly pulls it off by drawing on Elliott’s perspectives of both the past and the present.

My Old Ass is out in select theaters starting Sept. 13, and everywhere on Sept. 27.