My Old Ass (2024)
Directed by Megan Park
No — My Old Ass is not especially woke, scoring 37 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
My Old Ass arrives as a Sundance-approved coming-of-age comedy with a mushroom trip, a time paradox, and Aubrey Plaza as the older version of a teenager who is not thrilled to meet her.
Consciousness Markers
Elliott's romance with Chelsea and her explicit acknowledgment of bisexuality are central to the plot, making queer identity a load-bearing element rather than a garnish.
A queer lead, a Black supporting character (Kerrice Brooks as Ro), and a woman director anchor a modestly diverse ensemble, though the casting reads as naturalistic rather than programmatic.
A woman-directed, woman-centric coming-of-age story about a young woman's sexual agency and self-determination, though it wears its themes as character rather than polemic.
The closing voicemail about living in the present carries a gentle moral, but it is earned through story rather than delivered as a sermon.
The friend group is casually multiracial, but race is never a subject of the film's attention or commentary.
No environmental themes or climate messaging appear in the film.
The sale of the family cranberry farm is treated as an emotional loss, not a systemic indictment of capital.
The asymmetrical-breasts gag is a plot device for verifying identity, not a body-positivity statement.
No neurodivergent characters or themes are present.
No historical revisionism; the film is a contemporary original story.
Why it received this score
My Old Ass arrives as a Sundance-approved coming-of-age comedy with a mushroom trip, a time paradox, and Aubrey Plaza as the older version of a teenager who is not thrilled to meet her. Megan Park writes and directs, and the film's emotional engine is Elliott's romantic life. She has crushed on Chelsea since grade eight, and that relationship is treated as ordinary and important. Later, her attraction to Chad complicates her self-understanding, and she explicitly acknowledges her bisexuality to her friend Ro. This is not a background detail. It is the plot's load-bearing wall. The casting around Elliott includes a Black friend in Ro and a casually multiracial peer group. The film never stops to announce its own inclusivity. A woman director and a woman-centric story give the material a feminist texture, but it plays as lived experience, not a manifesto.
That restraint is the film's saving grace. There is no climate crusade here, no environmental sermon tucked into the lake house scenery. The sale of the family cranberry farm is an emotional loss for Elliott and her parents, not evidence of late capitalism's cruelty. The running gag about asymmetrical breasts exists to prove that Older Elliott is who she claims to be. It carries no body-positivity agenda. Neurodivergence does not enter the frame. Historical revisionism is absent because the story is contemporary and original. Race remains a fact of the friend group, not a subject of scrutiny. The film is content to let its characters be people, which in this cinematic climate feels almost radical.
The closing voicemail from Older Elliott, urging her younger self to live in the present, is a moral. It is gentle, and it is earned through ninety minutes of longing and bad decisions. That keeps the lecture energy low. The progressive elements are woven into the romance and the family drama, not stapled on as a lesson. The result is a soft-spoken, well-acted indie that knows exactly how much social consciousness it can carry without buckling. It is not a tract. It is a movie about a girl, a lake, and the people she loves before she has to leave them.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
An 18th birthday mushroom trip brings free-spirited Elliott face-to-face with her wisecracking 39-year-old self. But when Elliott’s "old ass" starts handing out warnings about what her younger self should and shouldn't do, Elliott realizes she has to rethink everything about family, love, and what's becoming a transformative summer.
Questions about My Old Ass
Is My Old Ass woke?
No — My Old Ass is not especially woke, scoring 37 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Based.
Does My Old Ass have any woke elements?
3 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by LGBTQ+ Themes (75), Representation Casting (50) and Feminist Agenda (45). On LGBTQ+ Themes: Elliott's romance with Chelsea and her explicit acknowledgment of bisexuality are central to the plot, making queer identity a load-bearing element rather than a garnish.
How does My Old Ass compare to other 2024 movies?
It ranks #28 of the 189 films from 2024 we've scored; their average is 22. The wokest is The Six Triple Eight (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.