By John Corrado

The 2024 Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival runs from May 24th to June 1st at TIFF Lightbox in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.

In honour of her 18th birthday, Elliot (Maisy Stella) decides to do shrooms in the woods with her best friends Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks). This leads to her encountering her 39-year-old self (played by Aubrey Plaza), who starts offering cryptic advice about how to live her life.

This is the setup for My Old Ass, the second feature from Canadian writer-director Megan Park (The Fallout), which becomes about so much more than just watching Plaza playing a young woman’s future self (though it is also that, and often delightfully so). Park instead uses this zany setup to slyly deliver a really charming and surprisingly tender coming of age story (and one that cleverly subverts the “coming out” genre).

Elliot’s encounter with her sarcastic older self upends her plans to spend the summer casually hanging out with friends, hooking up with girls, and counting the days before moving away to university. Instead, she starts heeding Older Elliot’s advice, and begins spending the summer reconnecting with her family at their property in Muskoka Lakes, Ontario (a beautiful backdrop for the film). This includes developing a friendship with Chad (Percy Hynes White), the “summer boy worker” on her family’s cranberry farm, despite warnings from Older Elliot not to get involved.

The high concept, future self conceit of My Old Ass becomes almost secondary to what is a really heartfelt and surprisingly grounded story about balancing growing up and moving on with embracing your roots. The film leans in to a lot of YA themes, but does so in a completely sincere and genuinely touching way, including some really lovely monologues performed by the cast.

Plaza shows her deft comedic and dramatic abilities in her supporting role, with the film primarily serving as a major breakout showcase for lead actress Maisy Stella, whose completely natural screen presence allows her to deliver the emotional beats in a disarming way. It’s a “star is born” performance, made even better by her wonderful chemistry with the sublimely cast Percy Hynes White.

Film Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)

My Old Ass screened as the Opening Night Gala for the Inside Out Film Festival on May 24th, and will be released by Amazon MGM Studios in August.