"When I look back at the movies of my childhood, there was some heavy shit in there," actor, director and writer Megan Park recalls. "Think about Mrs. Doubtfire — that movie is so fucking sad and about the heaviest shit ever, but you laugh so much."
As we trade stories about the moments we remember from movies like Mrs. Doubtfire, My Girl and Stepmom, the intensity of those stories we witnessed at such an impressionable time in our lives becomes strikingly apparent. During the '80s and '90s, films aimed at children never skimped on tackling serious issues to deliver the biggest gut-punches that our generations are still recovering from. "He can't see without his glasses!" Park emphatically remarks about My Girl's fallen Thomas J.
"I just love coming-of-age movies," Park says with a reflective reverence in her voice. "The first time things happen and how that changes the trajectory of your life. I feel like our generation had so many iconic coming-of-age movies that stuck with me more than any other films."
In Park's directorial debut, 2021's The Fallout, the Ontario filmmaker successfully found the balance between darkness and levity while following Jenna Ortega's Vada after she's forced to hide in the bathroom during a school shooting. An incredibly dark premise that found many moments of humour, Park's script struck a poignant chord with audiences.
This September, Park returns home to Lake Muskoka for her second directorial effort in My Old Ass. Starring Oshawa, ON's Maisy Stella, the film follows Stella's Elliott during the carefree summer months between high school and university. After her first trip on mushrooms, Elliott's aimless bliss is interrupted with the inexplicable appearance of her 39-year-old self, played by Aubrey Plaza, who warns the younger Elliott not to fall in love with a boy named Chad.
Where Park's first film explored the traumatic pains of circumstances beyond the control of its characters, My Old Ass seeks to understand the generational divide between an older generation that claims to know better and a younger one that simply wants to experience life as it comes.
"There's a lot of similar elements to The Fallout and My Old Ass," explains Park. "They're different, but there's this through-line. [It's] the heartfelt-ness that I really like tapping into as a filmmaker, and I didn't really expect that."
Along with Molly McGlynn's Fitting In and D.W. Waterson's Backspot, My Old Ass adds to a trend in Canadian film where millennial filmmakers are making coming-of-age films about Gen Z without any of the ridicule or judgment typically found on social media. For Park in particular, she hopes to speak to the generation now coming of age in a thoughtful and respectful voice, similar to the one that spoke to us some 30 years prior.
"I don't know if it's just the state of the world or what our generation has been through, but I'd love to get back to being able to tackle heavy things with humour, heart and love," Park says. "Leaving people with a good feeling at the end of [a movie]."