It’s taken 11 months of 2024 for a film to move me in some way and up steps a film with the title ‘My Old Ass’ that reduced me to tears delivering a beautifully heartwarming coming-of-age story. Here’s our My Old Ass Amazon Prime review.

An 18th-birthday mushroom trip brings Elliott face-to-face with her wisecracking 39-year-old self. When the older Elliott starts handing out warnings about what her younger self should and shouldn’t do, she realizes she has to rethink everything about family, love, and what’s becoming a transformative summer.
Elliott is a Canadian teenager about to head off to college who takes mushrooms and meets her future self (played by Aubrey Plaza) who gives her some life advice to not take her family for granted and ot stay away from a boy called Chad.
The mushrooms wear off and she passes it off as a strange trip. Low and behold the next day she meets a young boy called, Chad. The story begins.
As Aubrey Plaza is only shown in two scenes of the entire movie her essence is sprinkled throughout the film via voice messages as somehow Elliott can contact her future self via her phone.
The two scenes that Aubrey stars in are the most poignant as the introduction to the story and then her second appearance to deliver some news that turns the entire film on its head.
Writer-director Megan Park explores Elliott’s sexuality as she starts to fall for a boy for the first ever time despite being gay. 
 
This exploration of sexuality drifts through the movie as Chad (Percy Hynes White) sets to put a spanner in the works of what Elliott thought she knew about herself all along. 
Diving into the concept of being able to speak to your future self is thought-provoking. What would you say to your younger self, would you act on that information? Would you change the course of your life if you were given better advice and learned lessons from past mistakes to pass down to your younger self?
It’s a concept that has been explored in other films but I feel as though My Old Ass doesn’t dive too deep into the concept but rather embraces it at a surface level until the end when the film takes a more emotional turn.
Respecting those around you, not taking your relationship with your parents for granted and simply being present as time flies by is the motto of the film, to grasp life with both hands, embrace love and enjoy every moment.
My Old Ass delivers everything which such ease and flair. The comedy is there, the soul is there and by the time the film comes to a close, I’m watching through tears because the cast is absolutely superb and Maisy Stella who plays younger Elliott was superb from start to finish.
Her performance endears you to her and you’re invested in her story but whilst I loved this movie, something felt missing and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe I’m looking at the film wrong, maybe the film should be about older Elliott taking the shrooms and going back in time to guide her younger self as opposed to the other way around. Maybe not, I’ll just put the shrooms down now.
It seems to fire on all cylinders but there’s just something eluding the film to polish it off. Maybe the lack of her friends around her throughout the film sort of isolated her character to a degree but I’m clutching at straws trying to find that last piece of the jigsaw puzzle that would make My Old Ass perfect.

Our Rating

Summary
A beautifully crafted film that tugs at the heart strings when you least expect it, My Old Ass is an Amazon Prime Video that’s absolutely worth your time!