Aubrey Plaza and Maisy Stella both star as Elliot in My Old Ass, a fun play on the body swap comedy with hints of coming of age and an affection for Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. The film opens with Elliot and her two friends heading to the woods on her 18th Birthday, where they decide to take magic mushrooms. Whilst for her two friends the drugs work almost instantaneously, Elliot has little to no effect until suddenly Aubrey Plaza’s Elliot appears, who proclaims she is a 39-year-old, older rendition, using matching scars as an identifier. The two begin to reconcile with one another and as the night comes to a close, the older Elliot gives one final warning, don’t meet Chad.
As Elliot wakes up and her older self has disappeared she believes this was just a hallucination, but finds a contact in her phone titled “My Old Ass”. The film proceeds with the older Elliot giving her younger self advice, to speak to her family, enjoy home, and take note of the moments she takes for granted while she still has them.
However, soon Elliot accidentally stumbles across Chad, a charming boy who she begins to grow friendly with, yet the feeling that she cannot get to know or be with him remains in both Elliot’s and the audience’s heads.
The film plays with the body swap and time travel genre to great effect. By giving the audience a piece of information early on in the film that we are continually reminded about, it gives a new way to see a scene than we might otherwise do in another coming-of-age film. We are constantly asking, with Elliot, why is Chad so bad, is he even bad or is he lulling us into his trap. In turn, any possible sign that he may not be a kind and generous person is read into, but we as the audience must decide if this is true, or is this a preconceived notion that the film has inhibited into our minds. This gives the film a breezy quality, the runtime flies by and you are constantly wrapped up in its spell. Not only is this a smart and clever decision but it also ties the tropes of the body swap comedy with that of the coming-of-age genre.
Throughout the film, Elliot suddenly realises her love of home. When she realises her family are selling their farm, as she is leaving home, she spends her last remaining moments collecting memories and reminiscing about times gone by. Whilst the trope of not being ready to leave is prevalent throughout the genre, this trope does not become tired or cliché.
Another way the film tries to connect us to Elliot is through this idea of not knowing what to do and not knowing what you want, through her indecisiveness in her feelings for Chad, as well as not being sure who you are whilst you are about to leave home. People around Elliot feel like they are slowly detached from her, no longer willing to give her advice, she is slowly stepping into the isolation of adulthood, with the older Elliott as her mentor. Whilst these tropes of the genre could easily feel cliché, overused and tired, they continually come across as heartfelt and sincere, making you emote with the character mostly through her insecurity of identity.
My Old Ass is a charming and breezy coming-of-age meets body swap comedy film that balances continual laughs with a heartfelt story. It is a film that merges the two genres well and whilst using well-known tropes of the genre, maintains a fresh identity. The film is helped by two strong lead performances who have a strong chemistry, allowing the film to extract the themes of leaving home without bogging itself down in overacted melodrama.
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