SYNOPSIS: “My Old Ass,” a coming-of-age dramedy starring Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza, and now playing in theatres, asks a simple question: Would you like a sneak peak of your adult life complete with all the good, the bad and the ugly the future will offer? Maisy Stella plays Elliott, an eighteen-year-old whose future self guides her through the landmines of growing up and falling in love with one vital piece of advice, “Avoid anyone named Chad.”
CAST: Maisy Stella, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, Kerrice Brooks, Aubrey Plaza. Written and directed by Megan Park.
REVIEW: Despite a title that suggests a 1990s teen comedy, “My Old Ass” is a surreal coming-of-age story that stays anchored to reality with natural, heartfelt performances and a great deal of humor. In her second feature film, writer/director Megan Park displays an empathetic hand as the movie morphs from a standard(ish) teen comedy opening to a heartfelt finale.
The appearance of 39 nine-year-old Elliott suggests “My Old Ass” will be a fantasy, a “Peggy Sue Got Married” style riff on growing up, but it stays earthbound as an examination of the first blushes of new love touched by melancholy.
The film’s heart is Stella, who, as young, optimistic Elliott wrestles with real life situations and feelings about her sexuality, her future and the notion of leaving her teen years in the rear-view mirror. Her charismatic presence gives “My Old Ass” a bittersweet but never sentimental edge that elevates its love story above and beyond a Nicolas Sparks style romance, or a teen comedy trope.
As older, world-weary Elliott, Plaza, who only appears in three scenes but whose presence informs the entire movie, uses her trademark snark like a sword, but here her sarcasm feels like the shield that protects her from the ups and downs of a complicated life. It’s great work, and while the two actors don’t resemble one another, they share an energy that binds the two halves of the character together.
“My Old Ass” is an entertaining, and often funny look at the importance of embracing life fully, in all its joy as well as its disappointments and agonies.
A quote from French existentialist philosopher Simon de Beauvoir sets up the tone of writer/director Molly McGlynn’s semi-autobiographical sex comedy “Fitting In.” “The body is not a thing,” reads the title card, “but a situation.” It’s the perfect sentiment to set the stage for this raunchy, reproductive health coming-of-age film.
16-year-old Lindy (Maddie Ziegler) lives with her therapist mom Rita (Emily Hampshire) in Sudbury, Ontario. Abandoned by her father years ago, she and Rita has survived and thrived, and now Lindy finds herself in a new high school with supportive BFF Vivian (Djouliet Amara) and new boyfriend Adam (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai).
In anticipation of being intimate with Adam, she makes an appointment with a gynecologist to get a prescription for birth control pills. She’s never had a period, so the doctor refers her to a male specialist who, after a routine examination, matter-of-factly drops a bomb. She has Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, which means she was born without a uterus, and will never be able to give birth or “have sex without manual or surgical assistance.”
The news devastates her, leaving her shamed and anxious, unwilling to accept help from Rita or her friends. Overwhelmed by doctors who prescribe dilatators—”It’s like vagina bootcamp!”— her carefully crafted life begins to fall apart. There is tension at home, she quits the track team and, when she recoils from physical contact, her relationship with Adam becomes frayed.
“Pretty much my worst nightmare is people finding out,” she says.
The only person she feels comfortable confiding in is Jax (Ki Griffin), a nonbinary and intersex schoolmate whose relationship with their body goes a long way to ease Lindy along on her journey to defining her sexual identity. “I don’t feel like an object of medicine anymore,” Jax says. “I feel like being intersex gives me a superpower. To own who you are, however you define yourself, is up to you. No one should ever make you feel ashamed of that.”
Frank and funny, “Fitting In” is being described as a “traumedy,” a portmanteau of trauma and comedy. Director McGlynn certainly captures the struggle of Lindy’s situation but does so with relatable humour. Much of that comes courtesy of Ziegler, whose on-screen naturalness makes her an audience surrogate, guiding us through the ups-and-downs of Lindy’s life. From vulnerable and edgy to self-possessed and impulsive, Ziegler captures the chaotic inner workings of a teen coping with a life changing situation.
Much of “Fitting In” works well. McGlynn shows a deft hand with the scenes involving gynecological health care visits and details the alienating manner in which the male doctors advise their female patients. The teen scenes feel realistic, and the “big teen movie speech,” where Lindy finally finds a way to express herself, has a nice vindicating feel, but at 106 minutes the material overall feels stretched a bit too thin.
Paris’s 19th-century cityscape has ignited filmmaker’s imaginations for decades. Everything from “Charade” to “Rush Hour 3” have used the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame cathedral to add glamour to their stories. A new film, “Ballerina” does as well, but with a twist. Instead of real locations the story showcases the City of Lights with state-of-the-art animation.
Set in the 1880’s, Elle Fanning voices Félicie Milliner, an 11-year-old orphaned girl from rural Brittany with dreams of becoming a ballerina dancing in her head. She has no training but her will is string and soon she and her inventor friend Victor (Dane DeHaan) make their way to la Ville des Lumières. Using a bit of trickery—she assumes the identity of the snobby Camille Le Haut (Maddie Ziegler)—Félicie gets the chance to audition for the Paris Opera Ballet. Tough times follow as her lack of experience slows her progress. “You have the energy of bullet,” says the dance master, “but the lightness of a depressed elephant.” It’s only with the help of Victor and mentor Odette (Carly Rae Jepsen), a former prima ballerina turned cleaning lady, that Félicie gets the gumption to follow her dream and win the role of dancing the role of Clara in The Nutcracker.
Part “Cinderella” and part “The Karate Kid,” “Ballerina” feels like less than the sum of its parts. Like it’s “never give up” message the movie feels generic. The animation is fine, occasionally beautiful, but the character work and storytelling is strictly by the book. Standard-issue pop songs litter the soundtrack, providing Félicie with a chance to indulge her passion, although much of the ballet dancing is fetishized to such an extent it often looks more like martial arts than ballet.
“Ballerina” feels second tier. From the predictable story to that most 90s of showdowns—the dance off—it feels lazy, as though it is content to not only borrow from, but also sit in the shadow of Pixar, Dreamworks or Disney.
SYNOPSIS: “My Old Ass,” a coming-of-age dramedy starring Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza, and now playing in theatres, asks a simple question: Would you like a sneak peak of your adult life complete with all the good, the bad and the ugly the future will offer? Maisy Stella plays Elliott, an eighteen-year-old whose future self guides her through the landmines of growing up and falling in love with one vital piece of advice, “Avoid anyone named Chad.”
