My Old Ass
A Fantasy Proposition That Can Arouse
Good title? Huh ?
It ain't what you think...
The proposition: your older self meets your younger self.
18 year old Elliott (played by Maisy Stella) meets her 39 year old self (Aubrey Plaza)
One cannot avoid the thought- what if I met my younger self?
Filmed in Canada on Lake Muskoka, Ontario- this breathtakingly beautiful lake is home to the lead character.
It has been years since I have loved a movie since You've Got Mail.
Yes - I confess my sappiness.
I have been touched by dynamic characters in many movies. I understood them. But never ever have I felt I was them.
In My Old Ass, I felt what it was to be like not one but three different people.
I felt what it was like to feel any angst of an 18 year old girl awaiting her departure for college.
I felt what it was like to be a thinker who came into her life.
And most incredibly, I felt what it was like to be a mom, in witnessing her daughter grow and the feelings she felt.
The mom, Kathy (played by Maria Dizzia) made me actually feel what it was like when she recounted to her daughter the time as a baby she had to sing (sometimes over and over and over) a lullaby before her baby would sleep. Then she bittersweetly recounted the night her daughter simply said "crib" and as she put her baby down on the bed, the baby rolled over and went to sleep without a lullaby. Mom knew her baby would never need her to sing her to sleep again. Whew. I felt what that emotion was.
I felt when the love interest talked to Elliott about his thoughts on appreciating the little things. He asked Elliott if she remembered her favorite evening playtime during the summer. Then he said it came to an end at some point. He remarked- what if you knew that last evening was the last time you felt that joy. It wasn't about life changing decisions. It was in valuing the pleasures of life.
And Elliott. The last 22 days of summer when this story takes place, she is enjoying her last hurrah. And in meeting her older self after taking hallucinogenic mushrooms, she examines her life, her dreams and her upcoming future.
I love this film because it took me away to become those people. To feel what they felt, to cry when they cried and to know why laughed when they laughed.
Acting is a craft. Anyone who has been consumed by acting knows they have to inject life into the role. These four characters did just that. And in doing so, made me feel something I have never experienced by watching a movie. To become them.
