I honestly expected to like My Old Ass and found myself surprised when, about two thirds of the way through I began to accept it wasn't going to be able to correct a lot of what it was doing that was bugging me. Its message about going into life accepting that things are going to be hard, and acknowledging there will be loss, is a noble enough point but the film's cliched approach and overly simplistic outlook was too annoying to make it resonate. In the end it felt like a YA fiction version, a chicken-soup-for-the-soul take.
Park sets up her plot and films it very well, making for a promising beginning. And Stella has so much charisma that you fall in love with her right away. But as the film sets into its main plot, and the usually wonderful Plaza appears as the future version of Stella, the script starts to show signs of weakness. Everything feels like a cheat. The film's interesting premise is never delivered upon well with their interactions awkward, and not in a good way that would have resulted from the bizarreness of this actually happening. The film could have explored so much interesting here but discards most of that so it can get to its rather simplistic point. I guess I just wish they had done more with it.
Even if I wanted to give it a pass for how overly simple its idea is its handling of its main character's sexuality was a real drag. I don't know enough about the background to know how close this story is to Park but the main character's bisexuality felt forced and convenient more that honest and real.
I did appreciate how Canadian Park made her film. For not being a Canadian film, she imbues a heavy does of Canadianess into her story and characters and does so explicitly.
But overall I just felt disappointed in most of what My Old Ass was doing. It had so many opportunities to be something far more interesting and kept taking the easy way out.
My Old Ass
Starring: Maisy Stella, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, Maria Dizzia, Kerrice Brooks, Aubrey Plaza
Writer/Director: Megan Park
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