I needed to see a film like this that would fill up my cup after a MIFF that seems heavy on melancholy.

Megan Park’s My Old Ass had been recommended by a few people and I was hopeful it might give some queer joy. It is set in a Canadian rural town where newly 18 year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) can’t wait to leave her cranberry farm life and her boring family behind and go to Toronto and start her life. She is a sparky young thing, full of sassy sarcasm with her family, but she comes alight when she is with her friends Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler). She wants to cross some bucket list items before she leaves which includes hooking up with her high school crush Chelsea (Alexandria Rivera).

For her birthday, she and her two friends camp out in the wilderness and take mushrooms so that they can expand their minds. Ro and Ruthie‘s trips seem more mundane, but for Elliott, she is suddenly visited by her 39-year-old future self, played by Aubrey Plaza.

It’s a great premise and something that I think we all may have thought about, both from the point of view of the advice we would give to our young self as well as whether our young self would take any notice. Of course Elliott doesn’t want to but some of the things that older Elliott, her old ass, says starts to sink in, like spending more time with her family and appreciating them while she has them. The complication is that future Elliott tells her to avoid a particular person and of course that person appears in her life and has an attraction that Elliott can’t seem to deny.

It’s a sweet story with plenty of humour and sass and some nicely emotional moments that aren’t overplayed. It worked so well because of Stella, who I kept thinking looked super familiar and then when I searched her name afterwards I realised she is the Maisy Stella of Nashville all grown up. She has a sparky fierce Chloe Grace Moretz kind of vibe and thankfully embraces her queerness with great joy. And it’s a rare mainstream film that presents bisexuality in such an uncomplicated way.

There have been some rumblings about the casting of Percy Hynes White as Chad, summer farmboy and goofy potential love interest, due to some sexual assault allegations against him last year. I don’t know how I feel about that, he does a good enough job but really it is Plaza, Stella and her cohort of pals that really shine.