Megan Park’s “My Old Ass” isn’t the first film to ask whether it would be better to have a warning about what life has in store. But the borderline-sci-fi film set in an Ontario lake town, which stars Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza alongside a multigenerational cast of veteran and first-time actors, may be the first to do it via a kiss between a protagonist’s younger and older selves.
The Sundance hit, which releases in theaters nationwide Friday, appears to be a somewhat formulaic coming-of-age story about the summer after high school, until its 18-year-old protagonist (Stella) is visited by her 39-year-old self (Plaza) during a mushroom trip. The encounter and kiss lead to a surreal series of phone calls during which the older Elliott tries to help her younger self avoid a defining, early-life trauma — a subject Park also explored in her 2021 debut feature, “The Fallout,” starring Jenna Ortega as a teenager whose life is transformed by a school shooting.
“It wasn’t actually intentional for them to both be centered around that, but it’s definitely a theme in both,” Park told NBC News in a joint interview with the stars of “My Old Ass,” referring to her films’ framing tragedy as a core adolescent experience.
Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza in
How Aubrey Plaza and Maisy Stella dodge the time-travel cliche in ‘My Old Ass’
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