When the most innovative thing about your story is the title

So, I'm the story guy. Any of you that have read this blog more than once knows this. If I'm going to enjoy anything on any screen, it's going to have to have at least a semblance of a decent story. That is, in the end, the purpose of most creative works, be they words, pictures, or moving pictures. The old "... worth a thousand words" is a cliché for a reason. Even more importantly, if you're going to present a creative work that's just the latest in a long, long, long train of similar works because the genre has some inherent appeal to modern culture, then you really have to try just a bit more to make your efforts worthwhile. Sadly, My Old Ass does not do this. It's presented as a "coming of age" story with the twist being that the person helping guide Elliott (Maisy Stella, in her well done film debut) through that transition is the older version of herself, complete with knowledge of how their conjoined life will proceed which, of course, can't be told to the younger version, who's too insouciant to care early on in the film, anyway.

The main problem with the story presented in this film is that it lacks pathos. Nothing in it makes you think that it resembles the real life of teenagers around the world in any way, shape, or form. There is no tragedy. There is no concern. There's not even a bit of frustration outside of constructed elements that only vaguely resemble the disenchantment that most teenagers have with family life. The reason for this lack of real emotion is that none of the characters in this film are real people. They're all perfect representations of people, but they lack any hint of the trouble or problems or fears or consternation that all real humans actually have. This is a Hallmark card come to life. One brother is an expert golfer who's going to take over the family cranberry farm, not because he has to in order to save it or because his parents have demanded that he do so, but because he wants to be a farmer in 2024. The other brother is a blissful pre-teen whose only identifying trait is a serious attachment to Saoirse Ronan. Elliott makes noises about being annoyed by both of them as most teenaged girls would be with their younger brothers, but neither of them displays any behavior whatsoever that would be annoying to her. They're cardboard cutouts. Perhaps as a perfect example of how detached this script is from reality, despite this being an American film, all of the characters in it are non-threatening Canadians, since presumably no one could have this artificial an existence in Trumplandia.

Elliott is no different. Not only is she about to depart the rural enclave which is a beautiful lake house and her parents' cranberry farm for life at the University of Toronto with no baggage whatsoever, but she also has equally perfect and contented friends, the girlfriend she's always wanted, and has nothing to do but drive her boat around the picturesque lake out back. Sex with said girlfriend is stated to be fantastic and, of course, since we somehow can't see an actual coming-of-age sequence, Elliott is already eighteen when the film opens, so she's even a legal adult when it comes to sex, just in case some parts of the American audience would have conniptions about the fact that teenagers might have sex with each other. (They do. All the time.) There's absolutely nothing that would drive this film toward telling any kind of story because there's really no story to tell. There is no conflict. There is no change. There's no pathos that is a regular feature of most kids climbing through their teenage years. A perfect contrast is one of the classics of the genre, Stand By Me. In that film, Gordie's parents ignore him in favor of his deceased brother; Chris' older brother is a thug and he's regarded as one by association; Teddy's father is abusive and he bears the emotional trauma of that; and Vern is an outsider to this group of outsiders, seemingly loved and appreciated by no one, but pitied instead (Pathos!) They go through an adventure that shows them confronting these realistic problems and coming out the end of it in a more positive, reflective place. There's a story there that conveys that. My Old Ass, OTOH, shows you a complete fantasy that has to deliver the "wisdom" inherent to coming-of-age films with a boilerplate recital by Elliott telling us all to be brave enough to actually live life, rather than try to avoid its pitfalls. If there were any actual pitfalls in this film, that message might not have sounded so utterly hollow.

As we coasted along through this like Elliott in her boat, the word that kept coming to me as the best descriptor of this film is "cute." If that's all you want your film to be, OK. It rings more of a music video director (and, uh, writer) but I'm probably aiming a lot higher than most audiences, too. The other encapsulation that came to mind is that My Old Ass is the cinematic equivalent of one of those "Live, Love, Laugh" pictures that show up in people's bathrooms. I'd be a lot more interested in "Live, Sob, Glare Accusingly at Husband Over Breakfast" because at least there'd be something that comprised an actual story there and which might resemble life as all of us real humans know it, rather than in that mystical land of Perfectly No Problem Canadia. Am I being too cynical about this? Maybe. But mostly I'm just reacting to the fact that, once again, I sat in a theater for 90 minutes and no one told me a story that was worth seeing. I mean, sure, if all you want is a feel-good "story", fine. But that's why we have Hallmark cards, most of which don't take an hour-and-a-half to read before you find out they weren't worth it.