“My Old Ass” Review: Aubrey Plaza Stars in a Funny, Moving Romantic Fantasy

Maisy Stella stars as a young woman who gets life-coaching tips from her future self

In the years since her delightfully caustic performance on NBC’s Parks and Recreation,Aubrey Plaza has slowly revealed herself as an actress who can convey snark, sorrow and soul in the same breath.

She’s not a dazzler, someone who can boldly seize a film — there’s too much thought and calculation going on behind the eyes, too much ambiguity in the smile. But she does what she does better than anyone else could.

There was season 2 of HBO’s White Lotus,where she was Emmy-nominated for her turn as a lawyer smoldering over marital discord, as well as the small but intriguing films Ingrid Goes West(2017) and Emily the Criminal(2022), for which she was an Independent Spirit Award nominee.

What other actress would have the attitude to star in a film with the sarcastically undignified title My Old Ass?But this is actually a sweet, funny and quietly devastating romantic fantasy, and Plaza’s touching performance is what shapes the dramatic arc, making a tale of springtime into one that begins to approach autumn.

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The film starts on a note of youth, innocence and adventure. Eighteen-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) is charming, intelligent, a bit silly and eager to get through the rest of her summer, even though she lives in a visually idyllic Canadian lake region called Muskoka, where the calm waters mirror blue skies and deep-green trees.

In the fall she’ll leave for college in Toronto. But her future suddenly becomes complicated after she and a few friends share a hallucinogenic mushroom brew out in the forest at night: She’s visited by an engaging but pleasantly tart woman who turns out to be — herself, only at age 39.

Older Elliott (Plaza) is careful not to overshare details of the future before disappearing, but she makes a point to warn younger Elliott to steer clear of someone named Chad.

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Younger Elliott protests that she doesn’t know anyone named Chad — but then, lo and behold, the dude materializes, working as a summer hire on her family’s cranberry farm. He’s a string-bean-thin college student with a vaguely philosophical air. You get the feeling he thinks more deeply than Elliott without ever getting to the bottom of a thought. Younger Elliott is enchanted, and rightly so — Chad, as played by Percy Hynes White, is like a sunnier Adam Driver.

But what is Elliott to do about the other Elliott’s stern warning? Can an 18-year-old really be expected to follow the advice of someone who’s almost 40, even if they’re the same person?

This is all beguiling and strange, with the light ease of a skipping stone. But Old Ass turns out to be a lovely late-summer weepie, with Plaza delivering a scene of genuine heartbreak. The moment comes and goes like the shadow of a cloud passing over Muskoka, but it leaves a mournful chill. Stella, as the younger Elliott, is a bit like Alicia Silverstone — she can convey innocence, coltish happiness and, finally, rare romantic courage without any hint of calculation.

My Old Ass is in select theaters now.

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