My Old Ass Review

Aubrey Plaza is having a nice little 2024, isn’t she?

Starring as one of the bigger roles in Agatha All Along, the sequel to WandaVision was one of her major jobs of note. At least, I assume she is one of the bigger roles; I have not had a chance to watch it yet. As of this writing, the show just recently ended, and I was waiting until I could watch it in a big batch with my wife.

I’ve heard good things! It certainly initially started as “Why do we need this?”, but from what I understand, the ultimate answer to that was “Because it was great!”, so I’m excited to finally binge it all.

Of course, Plaza was also in Megalopolis, but perhaps the less said about that, the better. Hopefully she didn’t have Francis Ford Coppola force himself on her, as we had heard he was doing to women during production.

But in addition to those flicks, Aubrey co-stars in the coming-of-age movie My Old Ass where she plays the older, adult version of teenager Elliot (Maisy Stella plays the younger version). The new-to-Prime movie tells the tale of Elliot doing psychedelic mushrooms with friends of hers, and her ensuing trip, which sees her talking about life with her elder self.

From there, the elder Elliot does her best to guide the younger one through the pitfalls of life without actually giving anything away. Mostly she advises teenage Elliot to spend more time with her family. She does have one stern piece of advice, though: stay away from boys she meets named Chad.

Initially, Elliot takes the less direct pieces of advice and works to pay more attention to her siblings and parents–the opening sequence with Elliot taking shrooms shows that she skipped a surprise party hosted by them to do so–and she finds she respects what her old ass was thinking when she directed her to do so.

Of course, in no time at all, Elliot meets the forewarned-about Chad, and after her initial resistance to his attempts at friendship, the two form a bond. While her connection to her older self temporarily fails, Elliot finds herself spending more and more time with the one person she was told to stay away from.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ It’s what I have always come to love: a low to the ground, low stakes story about interpersonal relationships with comedic elements. It’s a heartfelt little tale that everyone can relate at least somewhat to. I have been a fan of these kinds of movies for ages at this point, and this is another in a long line.

I watch a lot of superhero movies and probably even more horror outings that feature supernatural goings-on and brutal killers. It’s really nice to settle down and enjoy something without the end of the world at stake or super high tension. My Old Ass is simply about a young woman finding her destiny. It’s an easy watch with a lot of heart.

+ You expect Aubrey Plaza to be the star here, and she is certainly doing good work. But Maisy Stella is the true star, and she carries the whole flick from beginning to end. She is adorable and funny and charming. Her version of Elliot is the focal point of the movie, and Stella manages to be so relatable and so entertaining that she makes the whole thing work.

Which is not to dismiss Aubrey Plaza’s performance. She’s just not in it nearly as much as you might imagine. She is basically in two scenes of the movie physically, then has a few disembodied voice parts. She is her typical strong self when she is involved; it’s just not a large amount of the picture.

– My Old Ass is a good movie. It is! It does everything very well. The comedy is there, and the soul of the flick is visible. It just feels like it never particularly excels at anything. It’s funny, but not hilariously so; It’s got a heart, but it’s not heart-wrenching. It all just feels so… adequate.

And that’s not a terrible thing. When your first Down is just that you are “good”, I think a lot of movies I review would take that. But I had higher hopes for this effort all around, where I thought it would elicit bigger and bolder emotions. I enjoyed watching it, but I never felt like it was really affecting me.

– The movie kicks off with Elliot and her two friends preparing for a trip out to a small island where they can safely and privately take some shrooms and have a trip. The trip leads to Elliot meeting her adult self, and the story moves on from there. And it does so more or less without Elliot’s two friends, Ruthie and Ro.

It feels like either a loss on the film’s part–what more could have been accomplished if it had left those characters more involved?–or it feels like you could have just as easily left those characters out and nothing changes. It just seems early on like they might be important, but that ends up being pretty far from the truth.

6.5

The final score: review Average

The 411

My Old Ass is a fun movie that has a lot going for it story- and acting-wise. But it never really gets out of third gear. It could have been funnier or it could have been sadder. Ideally, it would have been both. But instead, it all just feels so safe and plain; it just feels kind of "there". There are some missed opportunities here.