Where Was Aubrey Plaza’s My Old Ass Filmed? Every Major Location Explained

One of the weird things about growing up is that no matter where we do it, certain experiences are nearly universal. Nervousness about leaving home for the first time, the butterflies of early romances, and familial friction are things almost every teen experiences, but how they experience them can be wildly different. One big factor in how we experience growing up is where we grow up, and that’s why some of the best coming-of-age films focus on their locations. From Greta Gerwig’s portrait of Sacramento in her 2017 film “Lady Bird” to John Carney’s musical take on 1980s Ireland in his 2016 film “Sing Street,” location can play a major role in great coming-of-age stories. 

Writer and director Megan Park’s 2024 coming-of-age dramedy “My Old Ass” is not only a great story about love, loss, and growing up, but it’s also an absolutely beautiful look at some of the more scenic parts of Ontario, Canada. It follows a young woman named Elliott (Maisy Stella) as she prepares to leave her parents’ cranberry farm and the small town she grew up in for college in the big city of Toronto. One night during a mushroom trip with her friends, Elliott meets her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza), leading her to question her future in big ways, and it’s all set against some truly stunning backgrounds. 

Park’s first film, “The Fallout,” was a deeply serious coming-of-age story about the effects of a school shooting on a teenage girl, and “My Old Ass” feels like her way of trying to balance that darkness with a bit of light (though “My Old Ass” is not without its heavy moments). In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter (THR), Park said that she wanted to make “My Old Ass” a “love letter to Canada,” but without making it too overtly Canadian. She explained: 

“I wanted to make a movie that showcases a beautiful place that I thought was so special and hasn’t been masqueraded as some other place in the world. Also, I don’t mean any shade, but Canadian movies can feel so overtly Canadian or so specific to Canada that other people can’t relate to them. I grew up here and I’ve spent a lot of time here, and I was like, ‘It’s not that different from America. Why can’t it feel the same?’ So it was definitely intentional, and it was fun to not have to hide the ‘sorrys’ and the ‘abouts’ and those other little Canadian touches.”

“My Old Ass” feels authentically Canadian because of not only Park’s experiences,= but also because Stella grew up in Canada as well, making Elliott feel all the more real. The biggest Canadian touches, however, are the film’s locations, showing off some of the most gorgeous views in all of Ontario. 

Park decided to set a large portion of the movie at Muskoka Lakes, where she spent her summers growing up. Elliott enjoys spending her free time driving her rickety little motorboat around the lake, and that’s something Stella used in order to get the part. She told THR that she sent a video of herself doing a boat tour to the production team when she was auditioning, because “I have a little crappy boat as well and so does Elliott.” That probably helped seal the deal, and she ended up with the part of the young lesbian who finds herself crushing on a boy — the one boy her older self told her to avoid. 

That boating experience came in extra handy while filming because sometimes it was easier for the cast to get to set by jet-skiing across the lakes than it was to try and drive all around in a car or truck. Park told THR that sometimes they would just use jet skis instead, which had to be a ton of fun for the young cast and really help add to the “last days of summer” atmosphere. 

Elliott’s home life is fairly idyllic, and her family lives in a beautiful home Sterling Point on Lake Joseph in Ontario, near Muskoka Lakes. The cottage, which has stunning views of the lake and a lovely patio area, is actually available to rent to the public starting at $11,000 Canadian per week in the summer, which means major “My Old Ass” fans with some serious extra cash could go enjoy it themselves. Just be careful with any mushroom tea or Aubrey Plaza might show up and scare you with the knowledge of future trauma. 

The cottage feels truly lived-in, something that’s hard to do with even the best production team on a soundstage, and its picturesque views help provide context into why Elliott is hesitant to leave home for the big city, even if the independence it brings is calling to her. Growing up is tough, but at least she’s getting to do it somewhere beautiful.

As Elliott gets closer to leaving for Toronto, the time she spends helping out on her family’s cranberry farm seems to feel even more frustrating, even if her older self tells her to cherish those times. Instead, Elliott ditches work on the farm to spend time with the forbidden boy, who she also happened to meet because he was hired on as a seasonal worker at the farm. We get to see Elliott drive a tractor, wade through cranberry bogs and even have a pretty terse conversation with her father while waist-deep in bog water, which really sells her rural upbringing. She’s a farm girl and a lake girl, so moving to Toronto is going to be a massive change of pace. 

The family farm scenes were filmed at Johnston’s Cranberry Marsh, which has been owned by the Johnston family for several generations, much like the fictional family at the center of “My Old Ass.” The farm has 27 acres of cranberry marsh and is Ontario’s oldest cranberry farm, located near the town of Bala, which is the cranberry capital of Ontario. Basically, if you’re in Canada and interested in cranberries (and cranberry wine!), then Johnston’s is the place to go. 

While most of “My Old Ass” takes place on the lakes or in more rural areas, there are a few times when Elliott goes into town and we get to see what her idea of civilization is like. The unincorporated community of Port Carling, in the township of Muskoka Lakes, served as the town where Elliott, her family, and friends all went when they needed the essentials or to have a night on the town. Port Carling is a picturesque tourist spot that in no way resembles the hustle and bustle of Toronto, so Elliott is really in for a major change. When she meets with her friend Ro (Kerrice Brooks) for a heartfelt chat at a local restaurant, they sit lakeside with a view of a whole sightline of trees, the kind of thing Elliott is going to long for when she’s in the dorms in the big city, far from any kind of nature that’s not fenced-in and manicured. 

“My Old Ass” is a poignant and funny take on growing older and learning some of life’s hardest lessons, with some of the most beautiful backdrops in recent cinema memory. Seriously — how many other comedies look this darn good?