Maisy Stella

Elliott takes a swig of a big, hot, steaming cup of magic mushroom tea on her 18th birthday and not only summons up a wild dream, but also her 39 year old self in the coming of age film, My Old Ass. Teenage Elliott, played by newcomer Maisy Stella, can’t wait until she can leave her family and their cranberry farm in her rearview mirror for college in the big city of Toronto. The wild child is feisty, matter of fact and a bit over dramatic. She thinks she knows what she wants until her Old Ass “trips” into her life. Is the elder Elliott real or is it just the mushrooms talking? Either way, magic happens.

In the sci-fi world, there’s a long-held rule that time-travelers should never change anything in the past, lest they alter the course of history (and potentially erase the traveler’s own timeline). My Old Ass isn’t exactly a time-travel movie, and it’s definitely not a science-fiction film, but the story owes a debt to that concept – and to a small bag of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Writer-director Megan Park’s charming new film isn’t concerned with labels. Park and her cast play in a sandbox full of predictability, yet there are frequent surprises, and even the twists that seem inevitable are supported by complex characters and rich performances.