This article contains spoilers.
My Old Ass (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
“My Old Ass” opens with Ro, Ruthie, and Elliot on a motor boat heading to a café. Since Elliot leaves the town soon, she wants to express her feelings to an employee, Chelsea, in the café. In twenty-two days, Elliot is leaving, and now Chelsea and Elliot sleep together. While Elliot is having a blast with her friends and Chelsea, Elliot’s family is waiting at home to surprise her for her 18th birthday.
With a stash of shrooms in hand, Ro convinces Ruthie and Elliot to head into the woods for a night of camping under the stars. That night, the three of them drink tea made with the hallucinogenic. While they wait for the high to kick in, Elliot expresses how she feels living in a town with 300 people. Even though Elliot knows the bad things out there in the world, she does not want to be a third-generation cranberry farmer. She wants to move to Toronto and start living her life.
What advice does older Elliot have for a younger Elliot?
By then, Ro and Ruthie are already high and lost in their world. Now Elliot starts hallucinating as well. A 39-year-old Elliot comes before an 18-year-old Elliot, taking the young Elliot by shock and surprise. The older Elliot imparts knowledge about her young life and how it’s going to turn out. The first thing young Elliot is surprised by is that she is going to be pursuing a PhD at 39 and is unmarried. When the young Elliot insists on asking for more advice on her life, the older Elliot asks the young Elliot to stay away from anyone named Chad. When the young Elliot does not answer her mother Kathy’s call, the older Elliot advises young Elliot to spend time with her family and give time to her mother.
Much later, young Elliot kisses an older Elliot to understand what it must be like to kiss yourself. After the conversation, older Elliot saves her number on the younger Elliot’s phone. At home, Elliot is still distant from her family, making Kathy sad. Later, Elliot sleeps with Chelsea on the motorboat. They sleep through the night. They are woken up by Elliot’s younger brother, Spencer. That day, Elliot goes skinny dipping in a lake nearby. A guy pops up from the water. It turns out this guy is Chad, who helps out Elliot’s father with the cranberry farms. When Elliot realizes his name is Chad, she runs away from him. Now Elliot is out on the boat, texts her older self, and gets a reply instantly. So she freaks out. After that, younger and older Elliot started to converse with each other on calls.
What does Elliot learn about her family farm?
The two things older Elliot advises younger Elliot to do are to spend time with her brothers and family in general and not to sleep with Chad. Thankfully, younger Elliot takes the advice and starts hanging out with her family. Meanwhile, Elliot runs into Chad once again, who helps fix Elliot’s motorboat. As they converse, Elliot says her brother Max wants to take over the cranberry farm, so Elliot is free to leave. No matter how many times young Elliot asks older Elliot what Chad did, older Elliot does not respond. When Max and Elliot head out to play golf, Elliot apologizes for being rude to Max all this while. Meanwhile, Elliot also feels confused and has mixed feelings when she sleeps with Chelsea, as it is something she wants but does not feel right.
That night, Elliot dreams about sleeping with Chad and Chelsea. The next morning, Chad has breakfast with Elliot’s family. Since Max and Elliot go golfing together now, Max invites Chad to the game as well. While playing golf, Max reveals that their parents think about selling the farm, making Elliot extremely angry. Elliot takes everyone by surprise, as nobody thought Elliot would care if the farm existed or not. All Elliot does is talk about leaving town. At the same time, older Elliot is not reachable. Since Elliot is leaving, she asks Chad for help to sell her boat. While they ride the boat, Chad looks at life deeply. In the heat of the moment, Chad and Elliot kiss. As Elliot is not able to reach out to older Elliot, she asks Ro for mushrooms to start hallucinating again.
My Old Ass (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
What words of wisdom from a young Elliot change an older Elliot’s perspective on life?
Ro gives Elliot the shrooms but accompanies Elliot into the woods. This time, Elliot fulfills her desire to sing Justin Bieber’s One Less Lonely Girl instead of conjuring an older Elliot. The next day, Elliot confesses to Ro that she likes Chad. Moreover, she says she is confused about her sexuality and preferences. Since Elliot likes people of all genders, she assumes she is bi-sexual now. Later in the day, Elliot spends quality time with her mother. That night, Elliot realizes she will miss her family. She sneaks into her brother’s room and sleeps on the floor. The next day, Elliot introduces Chad to Ro and Ruthie. When they ride on the boat one last time, the motor falls off. It starts to rain heavily. So they stop in a shelter and sleep with each other.
When Elliot is close to home, older Elliot appears, and she is upset when she hears that the younger Elliot has slept with Chad. Finally, the older Elliot reveals that Chad is perfect. But he dies, and after that, Elliot has a hard time loving anyone that deeply. Despite that, younger Elliot says she will continue to love Chad because that’s what it is to be young and foolish, to take risks and live life to the fullest without thinking about death. These words move the older Elliot, and just then, Chad appears.
To young Elliot’s surprise, Chad sees the older Elliot. After that, Elliot continued to date Chad, especially since Elliot knew they would be at the same university in Toronto. Before leaving, Elliot spends time with her family and receives a final message from older Elliot saying she didn’t realize how wise the younger Elliot was. An older Elliot asks young Elliot to live her life.
Initially, getting advice from an older Elliot seemed exciting, but a young Elliot continues to make her own life choices even when she knows the consequences. Just because Chad is going to die and Elliot won’t be able to do anything to prevent it does not mean Elliot will not love him. Aren’t we all going to die someday anyway? Elliot believes in the idea of living a carefree young life as that is the only time when one takes risks and is not afraid to step out into the world and live as one pleases. As someone gets older, the list of worries increases. At the end of the film, Elliot takes one final ride on the lake. She says goodbye to this life and is excited to embark on a new phase of her life.
My Old Ass (2024) Movie Themes Explained:
Relationships
A major theme that is recurring in the film is to value relationships through tough times and joyful ones. The film briefly talks about the general norm of the society or, rather, an expectation that Elliot has accepted as well. When older Elliot appears, we see a younger Elliot surprised that at 39/40, Elliot will still be in school and unmarried. The expectation for Elliot about herself was to be married with kids by then, which is an extension of what society expects.
Through older Elliot, younger Elliot learns to value her family, which she has taken for granted all this while. When Elliot spends time with her family, she learns about what the family is going through, especially with the selling of the farm. A conversation with Kathy makes Elliot feel closer to Kathy as Kathy has sacrificed her self-care to raise Elliot.
Even romantic relationships and how we view them were addressed in the film. Especially when Elliot realizes she is not gay but probably bi-sexual or pan-sexual. When Elliot realizes this, she takes her chance with Chad while understanding her own needs. This leads us to the next theme, which is aging and the experiences that come with it.
Aging and life experiences
The way each person behaves at a particular age and the way they view life is evident in this film as an older Elliot has lived a long life to know to make better choices at a younger age. This would make her life better. But young Elliot thinks differently. Both perspectives make sense as young Elliot reminds the older Elliot that taking chances and making mistakes will make you wiser when you get older. However, from an older Elliot’s point of view, these look like regrets.
With aging comes the fear of death as well as loneliness, and many other issues. During such times, it is natural to feel regret rather than looking at it as a life lesson and moving on. The interesting thing is that older Elliot not only advises younger Elliot about bigger issues in life but also asks her to do self-care in terms of applying moisturizer and wearing braces. The implication of this is larger as the idea is to take care of oneself even if it’s the tiniest thing, as everything becomes bigger when one grows up.
Breaking stereotypes
The film beautifully explores the queer community showcasing gender identity and sexual preferences in the most normal way. At the beginning of the film, we see Elliot is into women. It seems like her friend Ro is also gay. Towards the end, Elliot starts to fall for Chad, a man who confuses Elliot about her sexual preferences. The makers have beautifully used humor to showcase what queer community, in general, goes through.
When Elliot shares her confusion with Ro, Ro says she does not think less of Elliot because she is straight. This one sentence is a game changer for the film as that is how the world tends to treat the queer community. Using humor, the film portrays a clear message of how someone feels when certain things are said about their gender or sexuality. The film also breaks the stereotype by showing it’s okay not to be sure of what you want or who you are into. The option to explore is always open. It’s just that one needs to listen to one’s body and emotions, as we see with Elliot.
