In My Old Ass, a teenage girl named Elliott (Maisy Stella) takes a ton of shrooms and encounters her older self (Aubrey Plaza), who then proceeds to give advice via long phone calls during a critical summer. Throughout the movie it’s ambiguous whether the time travel is actually happening — and director Megan Park says that was intentional.
“It doesn’t get you stuck on the logistics of time travel and that whole thing,” she tells Polygon. “That’s not the movie I wanted to make. And it really is just a human story at the end of the day.”
That particular setup seems so specific to this movie, but Park says she and her team really looked to romantic comedy 13 Going on 30 as a film that did what they were trying to achieve. It has a similarly timey-wimey concept, as a teenage girl makes a wish and wakes up as her adult self.
“We referenced it a lot,” says Park. “It’s a buy-in that works.”
Park explains the team looked at films that had somewhat over-the-top buy-ins but ultimately worked because the characters and stories were so strong — as well as timeless movies that really capture the essence of one specific summer.
Here are seven movies that Park says directly influenced My Old Ass.
13 Going on 30
Where to watch: Available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV
As Park puts it, 13 Going on 30 is a movie with a huge buy-in: Jenna (Jennifer Garner), a young teenager who desperately wishes to be cool, makes a wish to skip over the mortifying teenage years and become a successful 30-year-old. When she opens her eyes, she’s an adult and must grapple with all the decisions she’s made in the past 17 years and figure out if the person she’s always wanted to be is a person she actually likes. Oh, and also she reconnects with her childhood best friend (played in adulthood by Mark Ruffalo, who is absolutely swoonworthy) and sparks fly between them.
It’s not just the is-it-magic-or-not setup: the idea of a teenager confronting her older self definitely evokes My Old Ass.
Mrs. Doubtfire
Where to watch: Hulu
Another movie with an over-the-top premise that makes audiences suspend their disbelief, but in a way that works. The 1993 comedy stars Robin Williams as a divorced father with little access to his children, who hatches a plan to get to see them more: he disguises himself as an elderly British nanny and convinces his ex-wife to hire him. It’s not quite the same as a teenage girl interacting with her older self in some capacity, but Park has reason for referencing it.
“Obviously this is not happening [in real life], but you don’t care because you love the characters and you’re so invested in the story and you find yourself crying,” says Park.
My Girl
Where to watch: Available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV
To nail My Old Ass’s specific summertime nostalgia, Park says the filmmakers watched a lot of timeless summer movies. My Girl is a quintessential coming-of-age summer film, about a quirky little girl named Vada (Anna Chlumsky), a hypochondriac who has an obsession with death due to the fact her mother died after childbirth and her father (Dan Aykroyd) owns the town funeral parlor. She has one friend in the whole world: Thomas J. (Macaulay Culkin), who is allergic to basically everything.
Like My Old Ass, the movie takes place over one very pivotal summer. Vada takes a summer writing class, connects with her father’s new girlfriend, and then eventually must confront her feelings about death directly.
Now and Then
Where to watch: Available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV
I like to call this one Stand by Me but for girls. It follows four best friends across two different points in their lives: a memorable summer in 1970 when they were 12 years old, and then a reunion in 1995 when they’re all adults. In the flashback, all four are dealing with separate family issues but come together because the narrator Samantha (Gaby Hoffmann in childhood, Demi Moore in adulthood) is intent on conducting seances in the local cemetery (in order to escape her parents’ fighting). They end up trying to investigate the death of a boy from 1945 — all while dealing with various other preteen struggles like first kisses, family secrets, and adolescent dreams. Once again, the Big Memorable Summer thread to My Old Ass is apparent, but there’s also the idea of an adult reflecting on her childhood and taking away a valuable lesson.
The Parent Trap
Where to watch: Disney Plus
Was there anything more thrilling as a child than seeing the amazing summer camp in The Parent Trap? Twins Hallie and Annie (both played by Lindsay Lohan) were separated at birth by their divorced parents and serendipitously meet at a summer camp. They decided to swap places, to both get to know their respective absent parents and possibly get them to reconnect. It’s a movie that just screams summer. And the summer camp that the twins attend, with its tall pines and big lake, definitely feels like it was on the moodboard for the picturesque lakeside farm in My Old Ass.
Camp Nowhere
Where to watch: Disney Plus
In this summer comedy, a preteen hatches a plan with his friends to make a fake summer camp. Instead of being forced to go to camps they don’t want to go to, they pool in to rent out an old campground and trick their parents into sending them to this epic summer camp with no counselors or rules. Well, they do have one fake counselor — an old drama teacher played by Christopher Lloyd, who they blackmailed into helping. It’s just the kind of over-the-top summer shenanigans that could inspire a movie where a teenager trips so hard on shrooms she sees her older self.
Dirty Dancing
Where to watch: Available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV
Perhaps the most obviously romantic movie on this list, Dirty Dancing is about an unexpected summer romance between a wealthy young woman (Jennifer Grey) and her dance instructor (Patrick Swayze). But it also tackles some bigger themes about class difference and reproductive rights. Still, the summer romance is the backdrop that fuels the story — and lakeside moments are also a big part of My Old Ass’s romantic subplot between Elliott and Chad, the boy working on her family’s farm for the summer.
