Directing: A
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A

There’s something to be said for savoring the great moments in your life as they happen. Big moments, small moments: their apparent size can be misleading, and they can diminish or expand in retrospect. It’s the savoring that counts.

On a couple of trips I’ve taken over the past few years, I’ve thankfully had the wherewithal to look around and think—sometimes even say out loud: “I’m having a great time.” Too often, the best times are only appreciated in retrospect.

This was what I thought about watching My Old Ass, which uniquely captures this idea. It certainly does it in an unorthodox way: on her 18th birthday, Elliott (a superb Maisy Stella) takes a boat to a lake island with a couple of friends to trip on mushrooms. The three of them have individual, distinct trips, but what happens with Elliott, is she somehow conjures her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza, always welcome but without enough screen time overall to be what truly makes this movie special). For a good while after this, Elliott things this was just a one-time hallucination, and so do we. But then Elliott discovers her older self—her “old ass,” if you will—has put her phone number from 21 years into the future into young Elliott’s phone.

Elliott calls the number, and is shocked to discover it works. Just as she did on the island, Elliott is able to have conversations with her older self—a self who, incidentally, is just as amazed from her own vantage point. Writer-director Megan Park deploys a clever conceit here, skirting any need for sci-fi explanations by having both versions of Elliott say to each other: “I can’t believe this is working!”

When they are done so well, I love movies like this, which have a deeply fantastical premise that is rendered immaterial to the larger ideas it’s trying to convey. And, to be fair, a lot of the elder Elliott’s advice is pretty obvious: spend more time with your family, your parents, your two brothers. Don’t be so blasé about moving away from the second-generation cranberry farm in favor of the city (this being a Canadian film, here “the city” means Toronto). But, the obviousness is the point: the things that don’t appear to matter actually matter much more than you realize.

Then, Older Elliott tells Younger Elliott: “Stay away from any boy named Chad.” Naturally, we soon meet Chad (Percy Hynes White, also excellent), and just as Elliott spends a lot of time doing so, we wonder what horrible thing comes with his presence in the future. The more time we spend with Chad, the more wonderful he seems, both to us and to the younger Elliott. It doesn’t take long to realize the precise type of heartbreak the older Elliott is trying to warn against, and how even “dumb youth” can come with its own kind of wisdom.

Predictable or not, here’s the thing: My Old Ass really got its hooks into me. I surrendered to it completely and unapologetically, because of Megan Park’s finesse as a filmmaker, and because of the irresistible performances of its cast. By the end, I was wishing someone had forewarned me that I should have tissues handy. The marketing of this film—and certainly its title—belie the emotional depth it actually has.

I should also mention a peculiar element of Elliott’s character: she identifies as a lesbian, but she falls in love with a boy. (There’s even the memorable line, “I’ve never had dick sex.” It just made me want to use the phrase “dick sex” more often.) But, amazingly, in My Old Ass, there is nothing homophobic or even heteronormative about it. If anything, it’s an honest depiction of the fluidity of sexuality that queer people have been talking about for decades. The fact that Chad is just a nice young man you can easily see Elliott falling in love with is actually kind of refreshing.

The older Elliott does offer a few glimpses into the future, just from her dialogue—both illuminating and amusing. She makes an offhand reference to a girlfriend. She also tells the younger Elliott to savor salmon while it still exists, and scoffs when younger Elliott asks if they’re married and have three kids: “No one’s allowed to have three kids anymore.” This is all just the welcome sprinkling of comic elements, enhanced by Aubrey Plaza’s delivery. All of it comes back to savoring the good things you have before they’re gone.

Park makes the smart choice, though, not to suggest that the elder Elliott lives in a horrible world, or that her life is terrible. My Old Ass is much more concerned with themes that transcend such things: the kinds of longing and regret any of us might feel when looking back on our youth, and what we might say to our younger selves if we could. This is a story of that scenario actually playing out, and from the point of view of that younger self. The younger Elliott actually takes the advice to heart, and in different ways, both the younger and older Elliott learn how they have been wrong minded.

My Old Ass is far less the cute romp it appears to be, and much more of a deeply affecting meditation on aging, regret, and living openly in the face of life’s risks. I stand firmly on the side of its point of view, which is to mindfully savor the great times as they unfold, be they moments or whole periods of life. I savored the very experience of this movie.

Overall: A-