“I’m very grateful for this moment with you.”
Oh, the advice we could give to our younger selves! The opportunities they wouldn’t miss! The mistakes they wouldn’t make! But would they (or I guess it’s really “we”) listen? Megan Park’s My Old Ass is built around the meeting of a future self and how that brings a new perspective to life (both the younger and older versions).
Elliott (Maisy Stella) has just turned eighteen and is counting the days (literally) until she leaves home to go to university. She and a couple of friends go out to a small island to do some mushrooms. Elliott hallucinates a thirty-nine year old version of herself (Aubrey Plaza). The older version is coy about giving any specific advice (such as the next hot stock that would make them rich), but drops suggestions that her family is cooler than she realizes. But she cryptically adds that the younger Elliott to try to avoid meeting anyone named Chad.
So, of course, the next day when swimming, she encounters a young man named Chad (Percy Hynes White), who is spending the summer working on her father’s cranberry farm. Elliott has only been interested in women to this point in her life, but something about Chad clicks for her and the attraction begins to grow.
In the meantime, the two Elliotts continue to talk via text and phone. The older continues to be very discouraging about having anything to do with Chad. But there is just so much to like about him.
This is a crucial time in Elliott’s life. Her world is about to open up in many new ways. Her older self is a Ph.D. student (but won’t say in what; she wants younger Elliot to discover it for herself). But there are also hints in what older Elliott says that suggests a less than perfect future. Elliott is discovering already that the life she has known is coming to an end—far more dramatically than she’d planned. And, all this time, Chad continues to grow on her and her elder self won’t say why she should not fall in love with him.
This is a film that combines the naivete of the younger Elliott with the nostalgia of the older version. In the mingling of those two, we see the beginnings of wisdom. This is a film that wants us to consider what will make Elliott’s life good, successful, happy. It is the same question asked over and over in the biblical book, Ecclesiastes. One of older Elliott’s observations is “This isn’t going to be the last time you get exactly what you want, then realize if isn’t what you wanted.” That is essentially the recurring theme in Ecclesiastes.
The film settles nicely into the conclusion of the writer of Ecclesiastes, “Go, eat your bread with enjoyment and drink your wine with a merry heart . . .. Enjoy life with your [spouse] whom you love, all the days of your vain life that you are given under the sun, because it is your portion in life . . ..” (Ecclesiastes 9:7ff passim)
Of course, we already have wisdom passed down to us. We just need to listen to it. And our future selves may need to learn from our younger selves as well.
Photos courtesy of Prime Video.
My Old Ass is available on Prime Video.
