I Was So Much Older Then, But I'm Younger Than That Now

Last night I saw an advanced screening of the new movie, My Old Ass. Terrible title, excellent film. It had an affect on me, which I wanted to write about. Be forewarned: there will be some spoilers to follow, so if you think you'll watch the movie at some point, perhaps it would be wise to stop reading now and come back to this later.

The story revolves around Elliott, an 18-year-old played by Maisy Stella. It's the summer before she goes off to college, and she is living on the family farm with her parents and two brothers. She comes across as your typical disaffected teenager, who has little patience for her family and life in general. Oh, and she's a lesbian (that will become important).

One night, Elliott and two of her friends go off into the woods and get high off of shrooms. It is then that Elliott is visited by what appears to be a future version of herself, who says they are 39-years-old, and who remains (mostly) reticent about the future, aside from advising her younger self to stay away from a guy named Chad. She also leaves a phone number for 18-year-old Elliott to call her on, to chat occasionally.

Soon, younger Elliott has a meet cute with Chad (Percy Hynes White), and finds him irresistible. She begins to question whether or not she's 100% lesbian. Maybe she's bi? Pan? Or (gasp) straight? The two characters have several scenes together, and I found them to be utterly charming.

One thing that old(er) Elliott tells her younger self to do is to spend more time with her family. She isn't on the best of terms with her older brother, Max, but he likes to golf, so she decides to take her elder version's advice, and goes golfing with Max several times. She is also encouraged to hang out more with her mom, and the two of them have a scene together that absolutely devastated me.

Elliott's mom tells her about how difficult it was getting her to sleep all the way through the night, that it took until she was two-years-old before she could finally sleep soundly. Her mom recounts the night it happened in great, loving detail. It is a nice scene on its own but, as I'm often wont to mention, we always bring ourselves to art. It informs our view of it and, in the case of that particular scene, what that it evoked was an aching longing for a conversation with my mom. A conversation that can never happen, as is the case when someone has died.

I know that I was born at 11:14AM. I know this because, every year on my birthday, my mom liked to talked about the events surrounding my birth. How, the night before, her and my dad had friends over to play cards. How the she wasn't feeling well, and could sense that my arrival was imminent. How, despite generally enjoying the friends' company, she just wanted them to leave that night because of how awful she was feeling. How that night wasn't very restful, and dad took her to the hospital because it was time. How I arrived into the world at precisely 11:14 the following morning.

Every year, mom recounted that story, and every year I would roll my eyes, because I'd heard it so many times. Looking back, I almost want to recoil at the fact that I was annoyed by the telling of that story. Why on earth would it bother me? Do you know how much I would love, three months from now, for my mom to be able to once again bore me to tears by telling me that story? That's what I was thinking about during that scene in the movie -- how nice it would be to just have another conversation with my mother.

Megan Park wrote and directed the movie. She did a good job, though special mention has to be made for the actors involved, particularly Maisy Stella and Percy Hynes White, as Elliott and Chad, respectively. They're able to take the dialogue and really work with it. Case in point: there's a scene where Chad talks about being a kid, riding around on your bicycle with friends, just playing and having fun, and how one of those occasions will turn out to be the last one, but you don't know it at the time. It's an example I've heard before, bordering on the trite, but wow does Percy Hynes White sell it.

In another scene, Elliott and Chad are talking, sheltering from a rainstorm. Throughout the movie, Elliott has been developing feelings for Chad, but has been resisting them because of what her older self warned, and also because what she was feeling was confusing her regarding her sexuality. Finally, alone together in the rain, Elliott begins telling Chad about how she's met a guy, and has started falling for him. She calls the guy Gary. The scene features subtle yet electric interplay between the two characters. as they have a conversation about each other, under the guise of it being about someone else.

There is a payoff by the end of My Old Ass. I won't reveal what it is but, truth be told, I'd kind of guessed it. Still, the actors delivered it with such earnestness that I was completely under its spell. The final scene where we physically see the older version of Elliott had me fighting back tears. The lesson that the movie ultimately tries to impart is, arguably, a little obvious, but it still works. Your mileage may vary with that, but I was onboard with it.

I dunno. I left the theater feeling wistful. It was nice being reminded of what life can be about, and how important it is to value the people who value us. Now if I could only find the person who was chopping onions nearby...