Review: ‘My Old Ass,’ starring Maisy Stella, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, Kerrice Brooks and Aubrey Plaza

September 13, 2024

by Carla Hay

Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza in “My Old Ass” (Photo by Marni Grossman/Amazon Content Services)

“My Old Ass”

Directed by Megan Park

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Muskoka Lakes area of Canada’s Ontario province, the comedy/drama film “My Old Ass” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: In the summer before she goes away to college, a restless teen takes psychedelic mushrooms on her 18-year-old birthday and meets her 39-year-old self, who gives her some advice that the teen is reluctant to take.

Culture Audience: “My Old Ass” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and well-acted stories about growing pains in young adulthood.

Kerrice Brooks, Maisy Stella, and Maddie Ziegler in “My Old Ass” (Photo courtesy of Amazon Content Services)

“My Old Ass” capably blends comedy, drama and fantasy in this sarcastically sweet coming-of-age story about an 18-year-old communicating with a manifestation of her 39-year-old self. Maisy Stella gives a standout performance as a teen on an identity quest. The movie isn’t for everyone but it will find appeal with open-minded people who aren’t offended by how obscene cursing, casual sex and illegal drug use are presented as part of a teenager’s life.

Written and directed by Megan Park, “My Old Ass” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The tone of the movie is much lighter than “The Fallout,” Park’s feature-film directorial debut about teenagers dealing with the aftermath of a mass-murder shooting at their school. Park has a knack for casting very talented people in the roles that are right for them because they inhabit their roles in authentic ways. “My Old Ass” is Stella’s impressive feature-film debut after having roles in television, such as the TV series “Nashville.”

“My Old Ass” takes place during a summer in an unnamed city in the Muskoka Lakes area of Ontario, Canada, where the movie was filmed on location. Main character Elliott (played by Stella) lives on a cranberry farm owned by her parents Tom (played by Al Goulem) and Kathy (played by Maria Dizzia), who are very loving and supportive of each other and their three children. Elliott is the middle child.

Elliott’s older brother Max (played by Seth Isaac Johnson) is about 19 or 20. He has chosen to be in the family business of cranberry farming. Max and Elliott have an emotionally distant relationship because they are almost polar opposites of each other. Max is introverted and straight-laced. At one point in the movie, Max says to Elliott: “I’m everything you hate. I like farming. I like sports. I hate [the TV series] ‘Euphoria.'”

The younger brother of Max and Elliott is Spencer (played by Carter Trozzolo), who is nice but doesn’t have much of a personality. Elliott definitely likes Spencer more than she likes Max. Still, Elliott doesn’t really hang out with her brothers very much. Elliott also tells anyone who will listen that she can’t wait to move away from this cranberry farm and live her life in the big city of Toronto. In the meantime, Elliott spends a lot of time cruising on a motorboat in a lake.

In the beginning of the movie, Elliott will be leaving in 22 days for her freshman year at the University of Toronto. Also in the beginning of the movie, Elliott identifies as a lesbian, but that will change when she falls for a guy about a year or two older than she is. Elliott has a flirtation with a teenage woman named Chelsea (played by Alexandria Rivera), who’s about the same age, and the flirtation turns into a sexual fling.

Elliott’s two best friends are also free spirits: Ruthie (played by Maddie Ziegler) is tactful and a romantic at heart. Ro (played by Kerrice Brooks) is more outspoken and pragmatic. For Elliott’s 18th birthday, the three pals plan to go camping overnight in the woods and take psychedelic mushrooms that were purchased by Ro. Elliott doesn’t bother to tell her family about these camping plans, so there’s a scene of Elliott’s family waiting forlornly at their dining table with a birthday cake that Elliott never sees on her birthday.

While high on the mushrooms, Elliott is near a campfire when she suddenly sees a woman (played by Aubrey Plaza) sitting next to her. The woman says that she is Elliott at 39 years old. Elliott doesn’t believe her at first until the woman shows Elliott that she has the same torso scar that Elliott got from a childhood accident. Both of the Elliotts have some back-and-forth banter—younger Elliott thinks 39 is middle-aged, while older Elliott thinks 39 is still a young age—and trade some snide quips about what the future holds for Elliott.

The older Elliott will only reveal that she is a Ph. D. student in Toronto and is dating a woman. Younger Elliott asks older Elliott for life advice. Older Elliott tells younger Elliott to be nicer to her family and not take them for granted. Younger Elliott also asks older Elliott what her definition is of healthy love. Older Elliott says that healthy love is safety and freedom at the same time. After some of the jokes and semi-insults, older Elliott gets serious and gives younger Elliott a dire warning to not have sex with someone named Chad, but older Elliott won’t say why. It’s a warning that confuses and haunts younger Elliott for most of the movie.

Elliott goes home after the camping trip and thinks older Elliott was just a hallucination until she sees that older Elliott had put her phone number in younger Elliott’s phone. Not long after this psychedelic experience, Elliott is skinny dipping in a lake when has a “meet cute” experience with a guy named Chad (played by Percy Hynes White), who’s also in the lake for a swim. It turns out that Chad is an undergrad college student who is working at the farm for the summer. He has plans to eventually get a master’s degree in pharmacology.

“My Old Ass” then becomes mostly about Elliott trying to navigate and understand her growing feelings for Chad, who is intelligent, funny and kind. Elliott is confused not only because her older self told her to stay away from Chad but also because Elliott had always assumed that she would only be sexually attracted to women. Chad is clearly attracted to Elliott too, but she is very reluctant to get involved with Chad.

“My Old Ass” has a lot of familiar “will they or won’t they” scenes in movies about two people who are romantically attracted to each other, but one person is hesitant to act on these feelings. The movie has some quirky comedy, including another hallucinogenic experience involving Justin Bieber’s 2009 hit “One Less Lonely Girl.” All of the principal cast members are utterly believable in their roles and have great comedic timing in the performances.

What might surprise viewers and is perhaps somewhat disappointing is that the older Elliott isn’t in the movie as much as the trailer for “My Old Ass” would lead people to believe. In fact, there’s a great deal of the movie where younger Elliott is frantic and frustrated because older Elliott won’t return younger Elliott’s phone calls. There are also huge parts of the movie where Elliott’s best friends Ruthie and Ro aren’t seen at all.

“My Old Ass” has themes that are timeless, but a lot of the movie’s jargon and pop culture references are very mid-2020s and already kind of outdated. Some of the dialogue sounds forced, like an adult’s idea of what a progressive-minded, motormouthed teen (Elliott) would sound like when it just sounds like movie dialogue, not real-life dialogue. These are small flaws in a movie that is overall well-paced, fairly unique and elevated by a very talented cast.

Even though there could have been more scenes between younger Elliott and older Elliott, the movie makes a point of showing that this story doesn’t want to rely too heavily on a time-traveling gimmick. And although the movie’s title is “My Old Ass,” the story’s focus remains consistently from the perspective of younger Elliott. Viewers will be curious to know what older Elliott’s secret is about Chad, but the most interesting and best part of the movie is how Elliott reacts when she inevitably finds out this secret.

Amazon MGM Studios released “My Old Ass” in select U.S. cinemas on September 13, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on September 27, 2024.

Review: ‘Funny Pages,’ starring Daniel Zolghadri, Matthew Maher, Miles Emanuel, Josh Pais, Maria Dizzia, Stephen Adly Guirgis and Ron Rifkin

September 1, 2022

by Carla Hay

Matthew Maher and Daniel Zolghadri in “Funny Pages” (Photo courtesy of A24)

“Funny Pages”

Directed by Owen Kline

Culture Representation: Taking place in New Jersey, the comedy/drama film “Funny Pages” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A teenager defies his parents’ wishes by dropping out of high school and moving out of the family home to become a professional comic-book illustrator, and he meets a very eccentric would-be mentor along the way.

Culture Audience: “Funny Pages” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in low-key, quirky comedy/drama movies about comic book enthusiasts.

Daniel Zolghadri, Michael Townsend Wright and Miles Emanuel in “Funny Pages” (Photo courtesy of A24)

The comedy/drama “Funny Pages” is a very offbeat love letter to comic book fanatics and the extreme decisions some artists will make to pursue their dreams. The movie’s tone is inspired more by Charlie Kaufman than by Kevin Smith. “Funny Pages” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France.

“Funny Pages” is the feature-film directorial debut of writer/director Owen Kline, who is also known as an actor who had roles in 2001’s “The Anniversary Party” and 2005’s “The Squid and the Whale,” when Kline was a child. These experiences as a child actor no doubt informed the creation of “Funny Pages” protagonist Robert Bleichner (played by Daniel Zolghadri), an eccentric teen who wants to grow up fast and become an illustrator of comic books and comic strips that have sexually explicit, raunchy comedy.

Robert, who’s about 16 or 17 years old, lives with his parents Lewis (played by Josh Pais) and Jennifer (played by Maria Dizzia) in a typical middle-class home in Princeton, New Jersey. The beginning of “Funny Pages” is an indication of some of the weirdness throughout the movie. Robert is in a private meeting at the home of his art teacher Mr. Katano (played by Stephen Adly Guirgis), who is a fan of the type of rude and raunchy illustrations that Robert wants to draw.

Robert confides in Mr. Katano that he plans to drop out of high school, because Robert thinks that the places where he wants to work will only care about his talent and portfolio, not if he has a high school diploma. However, Mr. Katano doesn’t think that Robert has a strong-enough identity that comes through in Robert’s drawings. Mr. Katano tells Robert: “Everything in your portfolio needs to be clearly coming from who you are … Who do you draw for?”

Robert doesn’t have a definite answer to that question. Mr. Katano knows that Robert likes to draw pictures of naked people. The meeting takes a very unorthodox turn when Mr. Katano asks Robert if he wants to draw Mr. Katano. Robert says yes, and without hesitation, Mr. Katano taks off all of his clothes, except for a pair of socks. He stands up on his desk and tells Robert to do a nude sketch of him. Robert is a little surprised, but he does the sketch with a little discomfort.

Even though there was nothing sexual about Mr. Katano’s offer, it’s still extremely inappropriate for a teacher to get naked in front of an underage child who’s a student of the teacher’s. Mr. Katano knows it, and he has second thoughts about what he just did, especially after Robert finishes the sketch and quickly leaves because Robert says that he has to be home by a certain time. While Robert is walking home on a street near an expressway, Robert sees that Mr. Katano is following Robert in Mr. Katano’s car.

With the car window rolled down on the driver’s side, Mr. Katano tells Robert that he wants to make sure that what happened with the nude sketch session wasn’t something that made Robert feel threatened or embarrassed. Robert assures Mr. Katano that he thinks everything is just fine, and that what happened won’t change their student/teacher relationship. And then, out of nowhere, Mr. Katano’s car gets hit by another car speeding in the opposite direction. Mr. Katano is killed instantly.

After the funeral, Robert breaks into Mr. Katano’s home to steal some personal items that he’s sure that Mr. Katano (who lived alone and had no known relatives) would want him to have. A house alarm goes off, and Robert is arrested for the break-in. He has a public defender named Cheryl (played by Marcia DeBonis), who thinks Robert is an adorable and misunderstood kid, even though Robert is not as meek and nice as Cheryl initially thinks he is. She is able to get the charges dismissed by arguing to the court that Robert did the break-in out of grief, and he only took items that he thought were rightfully his. (Apparently, Mr. Katano didn’t leave a will.)

Mr. Katano’s death, Robert’s legal problems and the dismissal of Robert’s criminal case all happen in the first 20 minutes of “Funny Pages” and shown with some choppy editing. By the end of those 20 minutes, viewers will either be turned off from seeing the rest of this movie or curious to see what will happen next with this very unusual teenager. Many people in Robert’s life are skeptical that he will “make it” as a professional illustrator, but he is unwavering in trying to make his dream come true.

Much to his parents’ disapproval, Robert is so eager to get started on this career, he drops out of high school, moves out of the family home, and gets his own place: a rented room in a dirty and dumpy house in Trenton, New Jersey. Robert’s creepy and disheveled landlord Barry (played by Michael Townsend Wright), who also lives in the house, knows that Robert is underage, but Barry doesn’t care as long as Robert pays the rent. Robert shares the room with another weirdo tenant named Steven (played by Cleveland Thomas Jr.), who doesn’t talk much, but when Steven does talk, it’s often out loud to himself.

In his quest to become a comic book illustrator and in order to pay his bills, Robert takes a part-time job working at a comic book store. Robert also gets a part-time job working as an administrative assistant to Cheryl, who is highly amused when she finds out that Robert expresses his naughty side in his illustrations. Robert’s best friend (and only friend) is a former classmate named Miles (played by Miles Emanuel), a mild-mannered nerd who is in awe of Robert being able to have so much independence at a young age.

It’s through Robert’s job with Cheryl that Robert soon meets a hot-tempered, mentally ill man named Wallace Schearer (played by Matthew Maher), who was an assistant colorist at Image Comics. Wallace, who is one of Cheryl’s clients, got into trouble for having an emotional meltdown at a pharmacy and committing vandalism on the property. Robert meets Wallace when Wallace arrives at Cheryl’s office for an appointment.

Even though Wallace clearly has mental health problems, Robert is immediately intrigued when he finds out that Wallace used to work for Image Comics. It’s at this point in the movie that you know Wallace and Robert will go back to the pharmacy where Wallace committed his crime. Former “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” star Louise Lasser makes a disturbing cameo as a drugged-out and drooling pharmacy customer named Linda, who demands that Robert give her a Percocet. Ron Rifkin also makes a brief appearance in “Funny Pages,” as Robert’s unnamed grandfather.

Because of Wallace’s experience working at a well-known comic book publishing company, Robert becomes fixated on getting Wallace to mentor Robert. The rest of “Funny Pages” involves Robert’s strange encounters with people in the Trenton area and his desperate attempts to become Wallace’s student/protégé. Although none of the acting is terrible in “Funny Pages,” don’t expect to see a lot of pleasant characters in this movie.

There’s some violence, nudity and very dark comedy in this odd little film, but for people who are open to this type of movie-watching experience, “Funny Pages” has enough to hold viewers’ interest. “Funny Pages” is both a satire and a tribute to the single-minded passion that can consume artists to express themselves in their art. The movie has several mentions about whether or not an artist’s work has “soul.” In provocative and peculiar ways, “Funny Pages” examines if artists who pour their souls into their work might also lose their souls in the process.

Copyright 2017-2024 Culture Mix
CULTURE MIX