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Megan Park (Canada, 1986), already a successful actress, debuted as a filmmaker
with The Fallout (2021).
My Old Ass (2024) is an odd "coming of age" movie in which a teenage girl is advided by her older self to avoid actions that would harm her but nonetheless chooses those very actions which otherwise would never be known.
There is some philosophy in this parable, but the film feels unfinished.
The portrait of the dumb, obnoxious, spoiled and quasi-illiterate girl (whose vocabulary seems limited to "fuck" and "shit") is effective, but the way she turns
into a wise, lovable, mature young woman is rather implausible.
Elliott is a teenage lesbian who has two best friends, also lesbians.
She lives with her parents and two brothers at a cranberry farm in the middle of nowhere and she is looking forward to leaving that place for the big city where she is going to enter university. She is a stereotypical spoiled teenager who
wastes her time hanging out with the equally inept Ro and Ruthie, and having
sex with her girlfriend Chelsea.
To celebrate her eighteenth birthday, while her family is waiting for her to surprise her with a birthday cake, Elliott goes
camping with the two friends and they all take magic mushrooms.
Elliott thinks the drugs have no effect on her but instead suddenly a woman
materializes next to her and proclaims to be herself at the age of 39.
The woman knows everything of her past, gives her advice about dealing with
the family and warns her against hanging out with a boy named Chad.
This older Elliott even leaves her phone number to young Elliott, so that
the following day they can exchange messages, a fact that initially freaks out
young Elliott.
Following the advice of her older self, Elliott pays more attention to her family members. One day she runs into Chad, a summer worker on her father's farm.
Elliott is terrified but can't help liking the boy.
Older Elliott goes on a meditation retreat and young Elliott can't get any more
advice. The result is that young Elliott becomes less and less hostile to Chad,
a very fine young man whom everybody loves. Young Elliott is puzzled that
older Elliott warned her against this very nice boy.
Elliott learns accidentally that her parents are selling the farm: they never
told her because they thought she didn't care and in any case it's difficult
to talk to her.
Elliott and Chad find out that they will be going to the same university.
Elliott and Chad fall in love and have sex, despite the fact that Elliott until then was a lesbian.
Older Elliott reappears and young Elliott confesses that she had sex with Chad.
Older Elliott is devastated. Young Elliott wants to know why Chad is so dangerous. Older Elliott eventually tells her: there is nothing wrong with Chad, he's the perfect man, but he will die and she will be devastated. That's why she should stay away from him. Just then Chad arrives and sees the older Elliott. The young Elliott pretends that older Elliott is her "uncle". Older Elliott leaves them but first hugs Chad and can't help crying. Young Elliott decides that she'll keep
falling in love with Chad even knowing how much she will suffer when he dies.
(Copyright © 2024 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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