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Spoiler Warning: There are a ton of My Old Ass spoilers below. If you’ve yet to watch the Amazon Original, please back on up.
My Old Ass, which became one of the best movies on Amazon with an incredible 90% Rotten Tomatoes score in November 2024, is one of the best experiences I’ve had from a film on the 2024 movie schedule. Finding a balance between comedy and drama, young and old, this brilliant coming-of-age story starring Maisy Stella as a teenager who is visited by an older version of herself (played by Aubrey Plaza) while tripping on shrooms, made me laugh and cry on more than one occasion.
There’s been a lot of buzz around My Old Ass, both before and after it became available for anyone with an Amazon subscription. And while a lot of those conversations have been about the twist concerning the reason Older Elliott LaBrant didn’t want her younger self to meet Percy Hynes White’s Chad, I think the movie does a tremendous job of capturing being a teen and a grownup, and what they can learn from one another.
What Happens In The My Old Ass Ending
When 39-year-old Elliott magically visits her younger self in the early part of My Old Ass, she gives the 18-year-old some life-changing advice, which includes telling her to avoid anybody named Chad. And though she stresses it multiple times in the conversation and later on when they can chat over the phone, Teenage Elliott ends up meeting Chad and falls madly in love with him.
So, why didn’t Older Elliott want Younger Elliott to meet this Chad? Well, if you thought it was because he would ultimately break her heart and ruin her life, you’d be half right but not fully there. Instead, she learns that she’ll have a great life with Chad, a happy life, but that he will die and that she can’t save them. In the end, Younger Elliott decides to stay with Chad knowing full well that the tragic love story doesn’t have a happy ending.
The Movie Does A Great Job Of Dissecting That ‘Know-It-All’ Teenage Mentality
I’m sure this is the case for everyone, but I didn’t think I had life all figured out when I was 18 years old and about to start college, I KNEW I had life figured out. Well, it only took one summer to shatter that annoyingly naive and immature worldview of mine. One of the things My Old Ass does really well is the way it dissects Elliott’s “Know-it-all” teenage mentality and says “No, you don’t have shit figured out, and you won’t for a very long time (if ever).”
Over her final weeks of summer vacation, and by extension, her childhood, Elliott undergoes an incredible transformation as she becomes a more caring, considerate, and loving person for her friends, her family, and even Chad, who she’s totally not supposed to be seeing. The mushroom trip, and her encounter with her older self, challenge Elliott to be the change and see that she was wrong about so much while also allowing her to see how good she actually has it in this great Gen-Z coming-of-age story.
But At The Same Time, It Shows That Adults Don’t Really Have It Figured Out Either
But don’t let this make you think that My Old Ass spends the better part of 90 minutes tearing down the teenage mindset to prop up the adults in the room, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the more time we spend with Older Elliott the more we learn about her broken mental state (this makes even more sense after learning the truth about Chad).
When Older Elliott appears in the middle of Younger Elliott’s trip, the 18-year-old is shocked to find out that she isn’t married with multiple kids by the time she’s on the eve of 40, but instead a 39-year-old PhD student. If anything, this revelation helps the teenager learn that life isn’t going to be nearly as easy as we think it will be when we’re kids. There’s pain and there is confusion, but we can learn something from those adversities.
My Old Ass Shows Us That Teenagers And Adults Have A Lot To Learn From Each Other
If anything, My Old Ass shows us that teenagers and adults have a lot to learn from each other, which creates an intriguing dynamic in the film’s final moments. We can agree that both adults and teenagers don’t have life fully figured out and that that is perfectly fine, right? Well, the same can be said about the teenage mind helping the grownup mind and vice versa, as the different mindsets help fill in the gaps and come up with solutions that may have been overlooked for one reason or another.
Older Elliott helps her younger self understand that she doesn’t know how good she has it and that she won’t fully understand or appreciate this part of life until it’s long gone. At the same time, Younger Elliott helps her older self learn that you shouldn’t try to prevent something from happening just because it ends tragically. If that were the case, there’d be no point in meeting or loving anyone.
The Scene Where Elliott’s Mom Talks About Growing Up Captures The Joy And Heartbreak Of Parenting
The day after tripping on shrooms a second time in hopes of reconnecting with her older self but instead ending up becoming Justin Bieber, Elliott goes home and has an incredibly moving conversation with her mom (played by Maria Dizzia) who shares a story about the night her daughter no longer needed her to rock her to sleep. This little moment, which is one that has stuck with me more than just about anything else from the movie, perfectly captures the joy and heartbreak of parenting and growing up:
And I was so proud of you ‘cause you didn’t need me to get to sleep anymore. But, at that moment, I also realized that I wasn’t going to get to rock you anymore. And I guess that’s how I feel now. Really proud of you, but also a little bit sad.
That scene hit me like a ton of bricks. Now that my youngest is getting older and no longer needs to be rocked to sleep and can get dressed on her own, I’m beginning to realize that I’ve taken a lot for granted over the years. I can only imagine when my loud, chaotic, and messy home with dirty carpets and mystery stains on the ceiling will one day be nothing more than a quiet, empty house with dirty carpets and mystery stains on the ceiling.
Whether it’s the twist at the end or everything else that happens leading up to it, My Old Ass was a sensational and highly emotional experience that I won’t soon forget. If you want to go back and revisit the fantastic coming-of-age tale, one that has one of the strangest kisses of 2024, it’s streaming over on Amazon right now.