In My old ass, A young girl named Elliott (Maisy Stella) takes a batch of magic mushrooms and meets her older self (Aubrey Plaza), who then gives her advice in long phone conversations during a critical summer. Throughout the film, it’s unclear whether the time travel actually happens – and director Megan Park says that was intentional.
“That way you don’t get stuck with the logistics of time travel and all that,” she tells Polygon. “This is not the film I wanted to make. And in the end it’s really just a human story.”
This particular setup seems so specific to this film, but Park says that she and her team were really going for romantic comedies 13 continued 30 as a film that did what they wanted to achieve. It has a similarly contemporary concept in which a young girl makes a wish and wakes up as her adult self.
“We referenced it a lot,” Park says. “It’s a buy-in that works.”
Park explains that the team looked at films that had somewhat excessive buy-ins but ultimately worked because the characters and stories were so strong – as well as timeless films that truly captured the essence of a particular summer.
Here are seven films that Park says directly influenced her My old ass.
Image: Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing
Where to see: Available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV
As Park puts it: 13 Next 30 is a film with wide acceptance: Jenna (Jennifer Garner), a young teenager desperate to be cool, wishes to skip the humiliating teenage years and become a successful 30-year-old. When she opens her eyes, she’s an adult and has to come to terms with all the decisions she’s made over the last 17 years and figure out if the person she always wanted to be is the person she really likes . Oh, and also, she reconnects with her childhood best friend (played in adulthood by Mark Ruffalo, who is absolutely swoon-worthy) and sparks fly between them.
It’s not just a matter of whether it’s magic or not: the idea of a teenager coming to terms with her older self definitely stirs something My old ass.
Image: 20th Century Fox
Another film with an over-the-top premise that makes the audience suspend their disbelief, but in a way that works. In the 1993 comedy, Robin Williams plays a divorced father who has little access to his children and hatches a plan to see them more often: he disguises himself as an elderly British nanny and convinces his ex-wife to hire him. It’s not quite the same as a teenager interacting with her older self, but Park has reason to relate.
“Obviously that’s not happening [in real life]“But you don’t care because you love the characters and you’re so invested in the story that you cry,” Park says.
Image: Imagine Entertainment/Columbia Pictures
Where to see: Available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV
Nail My old assAccording to Park, the filmmakers watched many timeless summer films because of their specific summer nostalgia. my girl is a typical coming-of-age summer film about a quirky little girl named Vada (Anna Chlumsky), a hypochondriac who is obsessed with death because her mother died after giving birth and her father (Dan Aykroyd) owns the town’s funeral home. She has a friend in the world: Thomas J. (Macaulay Culkin), who is allergic to practically everything.
How My old ass, The film takes place in a very crucial summer. Vada takes a summer writing course, meets her father’s new girlfriend, and ultimately has to confront her feelings about death head-on.
Image: Moving Pictures/New Line Cinema
Where to see: Available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV
I like to call it that Stand by Me but for girls. The film follows four best friends at two different points in their lives: an unforgettable summer in 1970 when they were 12 years old, and a reunion in 1995 when they were all adults. In the flashback, all four deal with different family issues, but come together because the narrator, Samantha (Gaby Hoffmann as a child, Demi Moore as an adult), intends to hold séances at the local cemetery (to escape her parents’ arguments). In the end, they try to investigate the death of a boy in 1945 – while also having to deal with various other teenage problems such as first kisses, family secrets and teenage dreams. The Big Memorable Summer thread again My old ass is obvious, but there’s also the idea of an adult reflecting on her childhood and taking away a valuable lesson.
Image: Walt Disney Pictures/Buena Vista Pictures
Where to see: Disney Plus
Was there anything more exciting as a child than seeing the amazing summer camp? The Parent trap? Twins Hallie and Annie (both played by Lindsay Lohan) were separated from their divorced parents at birth and meet by chance at a summer camp. They decided to swap places to get to know their respective absent parents and possibly bring them together again. It’s a film that just screams summer. And the summer camp the twins attend, with its towering pine trees and large lake, definitely seems to be on the mood board for the quaint lakeside farm My old ass.
Image: Hollywood Pictures/Buena Vista Pictures
Where to see: Disney Plus
In this summer comedy, a teenager and his friends hatch a plan to host a pretend summer camp. Instead of being forced to go to camps they don’t want to go to, they band together to rent out an old campsite and trick their parents into sending them to this epic summer camp with no counselors or rules. Well, they have a fake advisor – an old drama teacher, played by Christopher Lloyd, who they’ve blackmailed into helping. It’s exactly the sort of over-the-top summertime shenanigans that could inspire a movie in which a teenage girl hits magic mushrooms so hard that she sees her older self.
Image: Vestron Pictures
Where to see: Available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV
Perhaps the most obviously romantic film on this list: Dirty dancing is about an unexpected summer romance between a wealthy young woman (Jennifer Grey) and her dance teacher (Patrick Swayze). But it also deals with some larger issues like class differences and reproductive rights. Nevertheless, summer romance is the background that fuels the story – and moments at the lake also play a big role My old assis a romantic subplot between Elliott and Chad, the boy who works on her family’s farm for the summer.
