Go Canada! I attended the World Premiere of Chandler Levack’s MILE END KICKS at the Royal Alexandra Theatre at the Toronto International Film Festival. Chandler is a big force on social media and a VERY hard-working filmmaker (last I checked she was also directing a Netflix movie for Adam Sandler) and it was wonderful to attend with all of the cast and crew in attendance.
About: Chandler Levack’s widely anticipated follow-up to her directorial debut, I Like Movies (TIFF ’22), stars Barbie Ferreira as a young music critic writing for a male-centric indie publication who takes a leap into adulthood, even though she is little prepared. With shades of Almost Famous — both feature Jay Baruchel and follow a music journalist — Mile End Kicks, set in 2011 Montreal, instead offers a feminine point of view.
Ferreira shines as Grace Pine, a driven though easily distracted 23-year-old. She leaves her quirky parents’ home for a shared apartment found on Craigslist to devote herself to writing the next great book in the 33 1/3 album exploration series. Hers will be on the iconic Alanis Morissette opus Jagged Little Pill. Loft parties introduce Grace to two paramours. Unfortunately, they are members of the same rock band, Bone Patrol. And instead of sequestering herself away to complete her draft, she uses her music industry know-how to get in with the band as their publicist.
Through wine-fuelled poetry readings and other ill-advised choices, Grace is in the trenches of self-discovery. Mistakes are made and rent is owed but, along the way Mile End Kicks gives audiences a new romantic comedy to fall in love with.
(Note: the above is the official notes from the festival program.)
Reaction: I was a fan of I LIKE MOVIES which showed here at TIFF 2022, so I was pretty eager to see Chandler’s new movie. In addition, her lead is Barbie Ferrara, who wowed me last year in Tracie Laymon’s movie BOB TREVINO LIKES IT which I have been championing ever since I saw it at the Seattle International Film Festival (Levack also had I LIKE MOVIES as the closing night movie there in 2023). Here, she plays quite a different character in Grace who is trying to find herself in a new city and feels quite out of her league, and finds all sorts of unique characters in her new digs in Montreal.
It’s a very fearless role for Barbie and I admired the lengths she went to to portray Grace, who is far from perfect and makes a lot of mistakes throughout, but also learns. There is also a standout role here with Juliette Gariépy (who wowed me with RED ROOMS at SIFF last year) as one of Grace’s roommates who is very much the life of any room that she is in. While she is pretty well known in French-Canadian roles I really wish for a bigger breakthrough for her. She’s just that good and steals the show. I was also quite impressed with both Devon Bostick and Jay Baruchel here in smaller but still effective characters who may be a bit more closer to Grace than they should.
The 2011 setting is also quite funny and in Levack’s always sharp attention to detail, she does show the technology right down to the year even with an earlier version of Apple Notes making for a funny running joke here (likely because I am also writing this reaction on Apple notes on my laptop that I thought I would mention it). This is also a nice love letter for both Toronto and Montreal as well. I am curious how the rest of Canada will react to this setting, and I am also hoping Levack will do a BC/Vancouver story at some point as I know she would knock it out of the park.
While MILE END KICKS is not AS perfect as TREVINO was for me — there are a few too many characters bouncing in-and-out and some of the dialogue feels a bit too “written” to me….AND I wish the Mile End Kicks store was featured much more — I was nevertheless entertained by this unique coming-of-age story that I quite admired for its feminist theme and will connect with many younger aspiring writers.
Release notes: Elevation Pictures is the distributor here and it looks like this will play some more festivals before having a theatrical release in 2026. As per usual I will update this article when I know more! A huge thanks to Elevation Pictures and Taro PR for assistance with this reaction review.