Magic Hours: 'Your Monster' and 'My Old Ass' Reviews
I saw My Old Ass a few weeks ago, and at the time, I wasn’t sure I could turn my thoughts into a full fledged article. However, it pairs surprisingly well with the just released Your Monster. Both use an unexplained fantasy element to explore the emotional life of the central character. The goal is not really to define the mechanics of whatever magic is at play, but to use something magical to develop the plot in a way that would be difficult to achieve otherwise. This is one of my personal favorite devices in both literature and movies so I couldn’t resist doing side by side reviews of these two films. Though neither film is perfect, they are both worth seeing.
My Old Ass
Directed and written by Megan Park
In this uneven, but charming coming of age film we are introduced to Elliott (Maisy Stella) who is a whirlwind of self-absorbed young adult optimism. She’s about to leave her family’s cranberry farm in rural Canada to attend college in Toronto. To celebrate, she skips out on her own family birthday party and rows out to an island with two of her friends to trip on mushrooms. A woman appears and introduces herself as the 39 year old version of Elliott (Aubrey Plaza). Young Elliott presses older Elliott for advice which she mostly refuses to give. She does, however, advise young Elliott to spend more time with her family and warns her to stay away from a guy named Chad. Older Elliott leaves her phone number programmed into young Elliott’s phone under the name “My Old Ass” (that’s the name of the movie!), and for a while they stay in touch via texting and voice calls.
I wanted to love this movie, but a couple of things stood in my way. First is Elliott herself. Realistic teen characters are a blessing and a curse, just like actual teenagers. Elliott takes her older self’s advice and emerges from her fog of teenage narcissism long enough to find out that she’s missed some major developments in the lives of her parents and brothers. Developments so major that it takes Elliott just over the line from “understandably oblivious” to “obnoxiously oblivious.” Elliott doesn’t quite have enough time to redeem herself, because all the stuff with her family is only the B-plot to her budding relationship with Chad.
Elliott’s romantic life is the element that I have the most mixed feelings about. She begins the movie firmly identifying as a lesbian. After meeting Chad, she begins questioning her sexuality. In an interview with Marie Claire, Park says “...in meeting this man, she questions maybe if she's pan or bi. It's a conversation of evolving labels and, in a sense, a reverse coming out. There's a bit of embarrassment about that, which I think is interesting.” While it may be interesting, it’s a lot to cram into a single movie alongside the issues with her family and her ruminations about her future.
I am fully aware that this exact thing happens to a lot of people. They identify as one thing, then they learn more about themselves and it changes who they thought they were. However, as with her interactions with her family, there wasn’t enough time to expand upon this aspect of Elliott’s character, and it wasn’t clear what narrative purpose the exploration of her sexuality was supposed to play. Consequently, it comes across as a cheap red herring to lead her (and the viewer) astray in her efforts to solve the central mystery of why older Elliott warned her to stay away from Chad.
Elliott’s confusion about her sexuality aside, the development of her and Chad’s relationship is skillfully handled. You viscerally feel the strain of Elliott’s attempts to not fall in love. I would want to be friends with Chad too. He seems like a great guy! Older Elliott’s seemingly off-handed warning is eventually what drives the narrative toward younger Elliot’s final confrontation with her future self.
Even though I didn’t care for some of the thematic elements that Chad brought, Percy Hynes White’s performance was the highlight of the film for me. He provides a quiet and introspective counterpoint to Elliott’s relentless forward momentum. Elliott and Chad’s conversations about childhood, and their final departure from it, are the heart of the film. Park’s script beautifully blends the joy and melancholy of young adulthood in these moments. For example, Chad points out that there is always a last time for everything and we often let that moment slip by unremarked because we don’t recognize it for what it is.
Ultimately, My Old Ass is about where we place our attention- young Elliot is too focused on the future, while older Elliot is too focused on the past. When the big reveal about Chad comes it’s cathartic and moving, if a little predictable. While full of temporal paradox problems, the time travel device adds a much needed element of comedic sweetness to balance the sadder realities of adulthood we all must face eventually.
Your Monster
Written and directed by Caroline Lindy
Do me a big favor and put any comparison between this movie and Beauty and the Beast out of your mind. That’s not what this movie is about, and it’s unfortunate that the makeup for Tommy Dewey’s monster looks very much like Ron Perlman’s makeup from the old 1980s TV show. There’s quite a thick glaze of nostalgia poured over the visual design of Lindy’s debut film so the resemblance may be intentional. However, the idea behind Your Monster has nothing to do with the fairy tale. In this article from The Deadline, Lindy talks about how the film was inspired by her own experience with cancer when she “...really developed this relationship with my anger for the first time, and I kind of fell in love with the side of myself that had been dormant for most of my life. It was kind of like I fell in love with my monster.”
Our main character Laura (played by Meghann Fahy) is going through a terribly tough time. She was diagnosed with cancer while working on a stage musical with her long time director boyfriend Jacob. When she’s hospitalized after surgery, Jacob leaves her saying that he can’t take the strain of being her caretaker. He also denies her the lead role in the musical they were creating. Her only friend is inconsistently dependable, and she finds herself unable to articulate how others, including her own mother, have constantly let her down. Laura retreats into her empty childhood home where the monster manifests. At first combative, then negging, then romantic, the monster becomes a driver of Laura’s quest for validation and vengeance.
Whether the monster is real or not is a mystery for almost the entire film. As with My Old Ass, the fantasy elements and how they mesh with reality are not really the point. Then what is the point? You would expect that the monster would be a metaphor, but that doesn’t really jive with some of his actions, especially early in the movie. Narratively, he seems to be a manifestation of Laura’s dissociation from her own anger and a device that allows her to fully express that darker part of herself. Tonally, though, the movie feels like a quirky rom-com for most of its runtime. Somehow it all works if you don’t focus too hard on making the disparate parts join perfectly. Lindy was clearly having fun with some of the world building and didn’t feel the need to jettison creativity in order to graft logic on to the monster’s existence. A trip into his tiny apartment inside Laura’s closet is particularly delightful.
To fit with the spooky season, and with a gorgeous costume featured in the movie, I would describe Your Monster as Frankenstein’s creature in film form. That story may, in fact, be the best tonal and thematic comparison I can offer. Like Book of Clarence from earlier this year, Your Monster is worth seeing just for all the creative ideas that are on display. While you may be confused about what exactly is going on, you will never be bored. At the very least, the impressive set-design and costuming will give you something to look at. Some people can truly work wonders with very little in terms of budget. The chemistry between Laura and her monster is compelling, and the musical that’s been hinted at throughout the film finally makes a show-stopping appearance at the very end. It’s a bizarre spectacle that puts a tart cherry on top of Lindy’s multilayered confection. As you might imagine, the question of who is really the monster comes to the forefront.
Your Monster is by no means a bad film, just a somewhat jumbled one. There is a theme, but perhaps not a coherent moral or message. I have some quibbles with the ending, the groundwork leading up to it, and the off-screen consequences it will have for everyone else, but it doesn’t come totally out of left field. Truthfully, I’m probably doing more analyzing that the creator intended for a film about emotions and how much free reign we give them. Hopefully this bold creative project is an indication that we’ll be seeing more and better from this film-maker in the future.