My Old Ass

Unfortunately, I saw discourse about My Old Ass before the movie even came to theatres. My Old Ass is about a gay-identified young woman who meets a guy that makes her realize her sexuality is more fluid than originally thought. I understand that this might not be a story that some people, especially lesbians want to see. However, I think there is huge value in narratives about bisexuality and sexual fluidity, including those that culminate in a heterosexual relationship. My Old Ass is not a movie about returning to heteronormativity. It’s more about destabilizing gender and gender roles. For this specific character, that means realizing that what attracts her to people doesn’t run across gender-specific lines. My Old Ass is a charming, funny and moving film from a bisexual director. It clearly seems to play on the director’s personal experiences and does so with a lot of heart.

18 year-old Elliott lives in a small community and works on her family’s cranberry farm. However, Elliott plans to move to the city for university and disregard her rural roots. On her birthday, Elliott and her friends take some hallucinogens. All of a sudden, Elliott is confronted with her 39 year-old self. Her older self has lots of advice, but is vague in the details. She specifically tells Elliott to avoid a boy named Chad. Even after the mushroom trip, Elliott finds she can still communicate with her older self via phone. She begins taking her older self’s advice about connecting with her family and enjoying her youthful days. Then, she meets Chad. And he’s nice and funny, actually. While Elliott tries to avoid him, she begins to question why exactly her older self would be so against her spending time with this nice young man.

Part of the reason My Old Ass worked for me is that at age 29, I’m exactly in between the older and younger versions of Elliott. This film is really good as a narrative about someone older trying to impart wisdom onto The Youth. Importantly, the film does this without going full-on youth is wasted on the young. Elliott receives perspective from her older self and chooses to act on it, which is largely beneficial to things like her relationship with her family. But Elliott challenges her older self too; highlighting that young, optimistic but naive bravery in the face of life’s tragedies and struggles is also a valid point of view. My Old Ass does all of this and is funny on top of that.

While the film’s central romance is between Elliott and Chad, this is still a queer film. Elliott has a respectable list of past female sexual partners despite being 18 in a small town. And her older self also mentions girlfriends as well as experiences with men. Elliott’s development regarding her sexuality is the focus of a scene with her friend, Ro. Ro is non-binary and the conversation suggests that Elliott was both supportive and informative when Ro discovered their preferred pronouns. Ro is able to parrot many of Elliott’s own beliefs back at her; about how labels are descriptive not prescriptive and how gender is on its way out anyway. It’s a brief yet jam-packed scene about the director, character, and film’s take on sexual fluidity and queerness. Plus, it’s great to see a supportive friend of any sort, but especially a fellow queer person who supports their friend’s self-discovery even if that includes pursuing a heterosexual relationship.

My Old Ass has so much heart and so much humour which makes what could have been a cloying or shallow-feeling premise really work. The humour is not only funny, but has enough edge that it helps counteract the almost quaint premise of an older person advising a younger person to live life to the fullest. Hell, even the title comes from a moment where Elliott gets focused on touching her older self’s butt for comparison and a bit of self-love curiosity. But many of these jokes and the film’s tone would also be obnoxious if there wasn’t such heart at the centre. When the film is making jokes, it works. And when the film wants to be “real” about topics like growing up, sexuality and even death, it works too.

I was incredibly charmed by My Old Ass. The film is a very funny take on a somewhat common premise. This is a lovely film with great moments of both humour and deeper topics. Its depiction of sexual discovery is well-handled and is, I think excellent representation for the bisexual community. I want to urge any detractors to the film to have some compassion for the fact that this film’s representation is of bisexuality instead of lesbianism. There is more than enough room in the world for bisexual and homosexual films. Though at this point, I think films that are not only bisexual but actually discuss this identity and portray it respectfully are a bit thinner on the ground than straight-up lesbian films. So I’m glad for My Old Ass to fly the flag so well in a film that’s also good outside of its quality representation.

Overall rating: 8.1/10

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