I’ll watch anything with Aubrey Plaza in it, even a sentimental romantic comedy with a silly title in which she appears in two scenes, but you otherwise only hear her voice.

I’m selling My Old Ass short. It’s better than a twee rom-com. It’s a movie about living in the present, which might sound hackneyed, but with the planet on the brink of climate collapse and Trump in power, maybe all we have is the present.

A message like “enjoy the now” assumes your “now” is worth enjoying; in other words, you better be a young person raised in a middle-class family living in a country with socialised health care. That’s the case with My Old Ass. Set in the gorgeous Muskoka Lakes of Ontario, Canada, we follow Elliot (played by Maisy Stella… in, I believe, her debut role) on her 18th birthday, preparing to leave the family and the cranberry farm for University. To celebrate her birthday, she takes psychedelic mushrooms with her two besties, which leads to an encounter with her wiser, older self from 21 years into the future, played by you know who. Older Elliot’s advice is for younger Elliot to get closer to her mum, dad and brothers and not to take them for granted. Oh, and not to date a bloke named Claude. The following day, Elliot takes a relaxing post-hallucinogenic dip in the lake when a gangly young man jumps into the water. Bet you can’t guess his name.

All the scenes between younger and older Elliot, whether in person or over the phone, are delightful. Elliot’s relationship with Claude, while predictable, is delightful. Snarky, acerbic Elliot is delightful.* And while all that delightfulness, beautiful scenery, and some charming and funny scenes might be hard to swallow given what happened on November 5, not everything has to be mean and cynical. Even if the film’s message is a bit on the nose, especially since so many people can’t live in the moment because their moment is a hell storm of pain and agony, I can still appreciate what Park is doing here, how she’s trying to shed even the slightest glimmer of light by asking us to enjoy what we have, even if it’s not very much.

But, fuck all that. The movie features Aubrey Plaza. Watch it just for her and be happy that she exists because a world without Aubrey would not be worth living in. 

*Maisy Stella looks nothing like Aubrey Plaza, and there’s even a joke about it, but she’s still perfect casting.