Finally, we’re getting representation for queer women approaching 40 who wish they had made different life choices. (Me. I’m talking about me, specifically.) The debut trailer for the Aubrey Plaza film My Old Ass premiered today, offering us our first extended look at the Sundance favorite.
The coming-of-age film, written and directed by Megan Park (Fallout) casts Plaza as a (possibly ’shroom-induced) apparition who appears to her younger self, played by Maisy Stella, during the teenager’s last summer at her parents’ cranberry bog.
“I thought I’d be happier at 40,” the younger Elliott says to her older self in the trailer’s opening moments, to which Plaza responds: “You are happy, and I’m not 40, asshole.”
“You don’t look happy,” the teenager says. “I feel like you’re having a midlife crisis.”
Throughout the rest of the trailer, we watch the 18-year-old Elliott struggling to navigate her relationships and figure out her sexuality, all while receiving bursts of sarcastic advice from Plaza’s apparition — and look, if you’re not getting emotional from the trailer alone, maybe you’re not a trans woman in her late thirties who can’t stop reliving her embarrassing and traumatic teenage memories. (Again, hi!)
In all seriousness, it’s refreshing to see someone put this refreshing twist on the queer coming-of-age subgenre. As I get older myself, I find I often avoid movies like Love, Simon, Booksmart, and the like not because they’re not good, but because I can find it too painful to revisit that era of life, watching a cast of exclusively youngsters — and occasionally a Jennifer Garner mom character — arrive at powerful self-realizations. Those movies often end with characters heading off to some glimmering horizon, whether it’s college, a new relationship, or a summer abroad. With their gender or their sexuality squared away, their entire future seems to be ahead of them.
Look, not to spoil anything, but things happen to you as an adult, whether it be health problems, relationship difficulties, career failures, or myriad other obstacles that can turn you into a more mature, but often wounded version of your younger self. By showing us a struggling queer teenager juxtaposed with a near-40 version of the same character, Park and crew may have just succeeded in bringing me out of coming-of-age movie retirement. The rave reviews the film netted at its festival debut certainly don’t discourage me, either.
My Old Ass will premiere in limited theaters on September 13.
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