Arts & Culture

My Old Ass
Where: In theatres
What: Movie, 88 mins.
When: Fri., Sept. 20
Genre: Comedy
Rating: NN (out of 5)
Why you should watch: If you love watching teens awkwardly, humourlessly flirting in lush Muskoka setting, this is for you.

CANADIAN ACTOR Megan Park (The Secret Life of the American Teenager, The F Word) writes and directs this flat, largely humourless coming-of-age story that sees Elliott (Maisy Stella) summering in teenaged purgatory between high school and university in a lush Muskoka setting where her hippie-esque parents run a cranberry farm and she constantly speaks of wanting to get the hell out.

Elliot does mushrooms on an overnight camping trip with two pals during which she summons a visitation from her 39-year-old older self. And bonus, Older Elliot is played by everybody’s favourite, Aubrey Plaza.

But the film is not as good as the concept or the casting even though, post-shrooming, Elliott is still able to stay in touch with her older self through texts and occasional visits. Older Elliott shares few insights into her later life except to warn her younger self to never spend time with a still-unseen fellow named Chad.

Of course, Chad (Percy Hynes White) shows up with Disney Channel charm, the perfect goofy but adorable boyfriend-to-be that self-declared lesbian Elliott proves increasingly unable to resist. All of this sounds like pretty solid comedy territory, but My Old Ass is uncomfortable more often than it’s funny, with teens passionately making out when they are not engaged in painfully awkward and cliched flirting. But the laughs are as rare as a mosquito-free night in Muskoka and the film has no emotional payoff until the very last act.

It’s a disappointing directorial debut that feels like it could have been much more.