My Old Ass, written and directed by Megan Park, is a treasure of a film. It has all the emotional impact of a coming-of-age story along with a highly endearing cast of characters and a hard-hitting mystical realism element that — don’t question it — just works. It’s charming and sweet with natural dialogue and if it doesn’t make you weep tears of joy then, I don’t know, I demand that you come over here and tell me why.

OPENING IMAGE

This was a deliberate choice. Park wrote it into her screenplay and she executed it in the final film. I don’t really know why. Why over black? The same voices could have been heard over scenic inserts. It’s not a major surprise that the teens are in a boat. Would another director have kept to the blueprint? Maybe, maybe not. I didn’t notice it when I first watched the film, so it’s a small thing to note, but it’s the writers’ job to paint a picture so it’s interesting to me that a film with such beautiful cinematography opened on black.

Park’s description of her protagonist is such a love letter. She devotes an entire paragraph to ELLIOTT. You can see it compared to the description of Elliott’s friends RO and RUTHIE (also…Park knew that she was going to direct her own screenplay and therefore was able to break the don’t-name-two-characters-similar-names rule).

Eliott and her friends, on the brink of adulthood and moving away for college, decide to get high on shrooms. When the psilocybin hits, Elliott is surprised by the sudden appearance of a 39 year-old WOMAN (who does not get a full paragraph descriptor) who is revealed to be OLDER ELLIOTT.

Future Elliott won’t tell her past self which stock to buy, but she does finally try to impart some wisdom on her younger self (“wear your retainer” and “be nice to [mom]”) and finally she asks Elliott to “stay away from a guy named Chad.”

Park keeps Older Elliott rather mysterious, but there are subtle hints about Elliott’s future…and it is one where Elliott has experienced loss. The land she grew up in — where the film takes place — has been sold. And there is a “flash of sadness” that crosses over Older Elliott’s face.

By page 27, it’s only 18 minutes into the film. Park’s writing includes a lot of great, speedy dialogue that feels extremely extemporaneous and real and the story moves along quickly.

Elliott packs up her room while her mother runs “out of ways to try and connect.” She hooks up with a girl she saves in her phone called “Hot Barista Chelsea” and goes skinny-dipping where she meets…

…a boy named CHAD.

INCITING INCIDENT

After meeting — and fleeing from — the “weirdly charming” Chad, Elliott goes into her phone and discovers that Older Elliott has saved her phone number in it and the two are able to text and talk on the phone. Through these conversations, we get more peeks into the future, sharing Elliott’s growing dread about what Older Elliott is hiding from her.

As Elliott chats with Older Elliott more and attempts to follow her advice, she makes attempts to be helpful to her parents and to bond with her younger brothers. A sweet montage intercuts pieces of their phone calls (“Will you tell me when we have our first threesome?”) with moments Elliott shares with her family, including going golfing with her brother.

But above all else, Older Elliott is insistent that Elliott stay away from Chad. Unfortunately, Chad is working on Elliott’s family farm for the summer.

FUN AND GAMES

Elliott and Chad run into each other once more at the lake — and the chemistry is undeniable. The thing is, Chad is sweet as hell, a great conversationalist, and completely disarming. “He’s like, this weird mix of being so lovable you wanna protect him but also is so basic you wanna punch him in his weirdly symmetrical face.”

Older Elliott forbids Elliott from having sex with Chad. And no more boat rides. She hangs up.

The next day, Elliott bonds more with her middle MAX brother at the golf course. He confesses that he thinks Elliott is embarrassed to be seen with him. Park gives beautiful action lines: “Elliott feels the weight of how she’s made Max feel.”

The summer continues to pass in montage, intercutting the Elliotts’ phone calls with Elliott and her family. The conversations are more than that of an earnest quest for knowledge from an older friend or mentor — Elliott gets to speak with utterly shameless vulnerability because she is gleaning wisdom from herself. Their conversations are touching and funny and poignant.

On page 58, Elliott awakens to find that Chad is eating breakfast with her family. Her youngest brother SPENCER describes him best: “A literal angel in our presence.” Chad is leaning towards biotechnology and hoping to get his masters in pharmaceutical science “to focus on, like, underfunded cancer drug research and stuff.” Good luck resisting that, Elliott!

Max invites Chad to golf with them and he drops a bomb: their parents are going to sell their farm. No one told Elliott because they assumed she wouldn’t care.

Elliott reaches out to Older Elliott; with only one week left in her childhood home — now, she knows, ever — she wants to know if there is anything she can do to save the farm. Meanwhile, she continues to pack for college, no longer quite so elated about escaping.

No response from Older Elliott…so Elliott turns to Chad and asks him to help her sell her boat.

MIDPOINT

Elliott finds it extremely easy to bond with Chad and commiserate over how bittersweet it is to grow up.

They share a very romantic first kiss when Elliott snaps to reality and flees.

Elliott decides to try to get in touch with Older Elliott again by taking more shrooms. Ro, good friend, goes with her to help watch over her. Unfortunately for Elliott — but fortunately for us — the trip goes sideways, and instead Elliott hallucinates that she is Justin Bieber giving out a rose to one less lonely girl. There’s a full concert performance, which is very funny from Ro’s sober perspective, but no Older Elliott.

The next morning, Elliott shares with Ro that she has feelings for someone, but to her deep embarrassment, this time, it’s for a guy. I love this take on a coming out story. Elliott was so confident and accepted when she thought she was just homosexual…for her to discover that she’s actually bisexual was a great twist on most stories where queer characters detour from “the norm.” And Ro, the good friend that she is, reassures Elliott that she doesn’t think any less of her.

Elliott continues to bond more closely with her family, spared just in time from taking them for granted fully before she leaves.

Elliott introduces Ruthie and Ro to Chad. They approve and leave the two lovebirds alone for a boat. They have fun, they laugh, they share sweet moments, and then, because every good coming of age tale includes a love story, they get caught in a summer storm and hide out in an old, abandoned boat house.

They realize they are going to go to the same university in the fall. They have incredible chemistry. There’s nothing to keep them apart except Older Elliott’s adamant warnings. They kiss and then Elliott decides to have “dick sex” for the first time.

Park has extremely charming action lines describing their growing connection. They’re adorable.

BAD TO WORSE

But.

There was a reason Older Elliott was warning Elliott to avoid Chad.

Older Elliott appears as Elliott and Chad kiss goodbye and demands an explanation. Elliott apologizes and says that she tried to stay away from him, but that it’s so easy to love him. She then pleads with Older Elliott to tell her what Chad does in the future that’s so bad and finally she blurts it out: Chad dies.

ALL IS LOST

Older Elliott tells Elliott that the pain of losing Chad is “so hard. So, SO hard.” She wants to save herself from that pain. But, in a moment of clarity, Elliott decides that she is not going to run from the fear of loss.

FINALE

Chad surprises the girls by appearing to return a sweater. Older Elliott “can hardly catch her breath being this close to him. Seeing him in the flesh again.” He can see her — they can all see each other…something he doesn’t understand why it must be clarified.

While Chad talks about something mundane, “We stay with Older Elliott, as she watches him talk. Seeing him again, them together, Older Elliott begins to remember the joy in Chad before all the pain of losing him clouded it.”

He senses that he has interrupted a moment and excuses himself but Older Elliott stops him and tells Chad and Elliott to stay together. She gives him “the deepest, most meaningful hug she possibly can” and leaves, him in some confusion lacking the subtext of the moment and Elliott with the knowledge that every day with Chad is going to be a fleeting gift.

Elliott leans into the gratitude of new love with Chad and growing up in a beautiful world and the film ends with one last lovely, funny message from Older Elliott that we could all take to heart.