My Old Ass: Poignant and deeply personal

My Old Ass (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for drug use, sexual candor and frequent profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.22.24

Canadian writer/director Megan Park’s new film is one of the summer’s sweetest surprises: a deeply moving, intimately emotional, and tartly humorous coming-of-age saga ... but not in the way you’d expect.

 

Although Elliott (Maisy Stella, left) doesn't initially believe that a mysterious newcomer
(Aubrey Plaza) is her older self, doubts are erased quickly ... which opens the door to
all manner of questions.

Park’s nuanced skill with interpersonal relationships is impressive. Every one of the nine key characters is well sculpted, and persuasive played by a roster of mostly unknown talent. Her unerring ear for dialogue is equally superb; no wrong notes are hit during the many relaxed chats, confessions and ruminations. The goofy, flirty and often profane banter, between the teenage protagonist and her friends, feels just as natural.

The crucial message — so simple, yet profound — is that life is full of change. We need to cherish every moment, because one never knows if it might be the last time in that place, or with those people, or enjoying a particular activity.

 

We’ve all thought it: If I knew then, what I know now, I’d have paid more attention.

 

All this said, Park presents this moral in a most unusual manner.

 

The time is present day, the setting Canada’s gorgeous Muskoka Lakes region, near the southern tip of Ontario, 140 miles above Toronto. The place practically screams youthful innocence; cinematographer Kristen Correll’s gorgeous tableaus could be framed and hung in prestigious museums.

 

Free-spirited Elliott (Maisy Stella), two weeks away from heading off to university, is making the most of each day with besties Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks). They’re introduced in a small outboard boat, as Elliott motors them to a remote island, where she intends to celebrate her 18th birthday by tripping on mushrooms with them, and spending the night at their improvised campsite.

 

By doing so, she has blown off dinner with her family: her father Tom (Alain Goulem), mother Kathy (Maria Dizzia) and younger brothers Max (Seth Isaac Johnson) and Spencer (Carter Trozzolo). The family tableau is quietly awkward; they even baked a cake, which Spencer took pains to decorate.

 

(Elliott later insists that she informed her mother of these plans, and Kathy graciously acknowledges that may have been the case ... but it’s far more likely that the girl gave no thought to how her family might wish to celebrate her birthday with her.)

 

The Book of Henry: A fascinating read

The Book of Henry (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.16.17

Films don’t surprise me much any more.

This one did.

The Book of Henry is a captivating convergence of premise, cast and execution: a beguiling “little” drama filled with big ideas, carefully shepherded by a director and writer who maintain unerring control throughout.

While Mom's away, the boys will play: Armed with a vacuum cleaner, toilet plungers,
goggles and gallons of packing "peanuts," Henry (Jaeden Lieberher, left) does his best
to put a smile on the face of younger brother Peter (Jacob Tremblay).

Trust is in short supply these days, from all sorts of quarters. It seems like people and things too frequently disappoint us, and that’s equally true of films that betray our faith and intelligence. Not so The Book of Henry. Barely half an hour in, it became clear that scripter Gregg Hurwitz wasn’t going to miss a step with his enchanting narrative, and that director Colin Trevorrow’s guiding hand would monitor all the elements with the precision of the Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions concocted by the story’s title character.

In short, I gave my trust to Hurwitz and Trevorrow, and they didn’t let me down.

Eleven-year-old Henry (Jaeden Lieberher) shares a bedroom with his younger brother Peter (Jacob Tremblay) in a pastoral suburban town in upstate New York. Their mother Susan (Naomi Watts), a single parent, toils as a waitress at a tiny diner, alongside co-waitress and feisty family friend Sheila (Sarah Silverman).

Susan is forgetful, immature and only mildly educated: still stuck in post-adolescence, all these years later, and more big sister than parent. The preternaturally serious Henry, in stark contrast, has the family well in hand; he’s charismatic, shrewdly intuitive and super-smart. (He prefers the term “precocious.”)

On a typical weekday evening, Susan spends hours playing video games; Henry sits quietly at a table, paying all the bills and keeping an eye on the stock market.

He also keeps an eye on Christina (Maddie Ziegler), the girl next door who sits at an adjacent desk in his classroom. Normally a friendly, cheerful lass, of late she has grown quiet and withdrawn, frequently half-concealing her face beneath her hair. Her step-father Glenn (Dean Norris) — also a single parent, and the local police chief — seems ... well ... tightly wound.

All three kids are creative. Christina dances; Henry and Peter spend lots of time in their tree house, in the woods behind their home. This kids’ heaven has been assembled from all manner of found materials — no doubt engineered by Henry — and filled with toys, gadgets and discarded junk waiting to be transformed into something spectacular. Best touch: the tree house entrance is a re-purposed refrigerator door, complete with bottles held within its shelves.