Can you blame a critic for waved when a character pulls out a notepad in the middle of a concert? Cinematic depictions of criticism usually appear at best and, in the worst case, personally personal. Well, critics can exhale when watching “Mile End Sparks“The second function of the Canadian writer/director Chandler Levack. Levack, himself a former critic, is cynical about some things, but the action of criticism is not one of them.
Like her debut “I like movies”, Levack’s new film is based on her own life experiences, namely a summer that she spent in Montreal as a young, future writer who tried to find herself. Her main character, Grace Pine (Barbie Ferreira), goes through a similar bow and convince themselves – as so many young people do – to move somewhere cooler will fix their lives. She also tells everyone that she writes a book about Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill”, do not keep in mind that she has neither a book agreement nor a first draft. Grace was recently practiced on an alt-week whose editor told her that she had a promise as a writer (more about it a little). But really, everything she learned there is how carving and rejecting male rock critics can be against younger women.
I don’t work there anymore, so it certainly seems to reveal that my personal nickname for the circle of white male gate guards at the publication where I got my start was “The Plaid Dads.” And as with the complications in the sock in a suburban video store in “I Like Movies”, “Mile End Sparks“Gets the nuances in life as a young female music critic right. The scenarios are related – who among us have not worried e -mail messages from an editor? – as are the conversations: the argument that grace interrupts, earns mocking laughter from her colleagues, is over the benefits with different Hüker Dü albums.
“Mile End Kicks” is set in 2011, but it feels More like the late Augthts – Again, correct – and the care that is put into details about Grace’s world is shown in the opening credits, made in the modified Helvetica sign in an American clothing ad. The reference returns in the film’s most artificial scene, which follows Grace around a party with a headlight on her face and moves with her. The flat, bright light creates a vignette effect reminiscent of a Terry Richardson photography, which effectively produces both your and the sexual danger that came.
“Mile End Kicks” is also specifically for Montreal (look for Grimes Lookalike, sniff something from the edge of a toilet at a loft party), as well as Canada as a whole. A monologue in particular about the life cycle for a hip canoeer should kill with local target groups, although it was also true for someone from American Midwest as well.
“Red rooms“Star Juliette Gariépy brings with him a French-Canadian style like Grace’s DJ roommate Madeline, who begins to think that this dorky Ontario transplant that does not speak French is kind of adorable before losing her patience with Grace’s unpaid rent and brave refrigerator.
She is not a particularly well -developed character; Her role is to act as a travel guide/sound board/possible lesson for our protagonist, who speaks to one of the weaker aspects of Levack’s film.
Grace can be a frustrating protagonist who makes stupid, self -sabotaging decisions in the quest to have fleeting pleasure and conditional approval from guys who honestly are not worth their time. But it’s just part of what makes her real. By comparison, some of the supportive characters, especially (why meat words?) Idiot Fuckboy Chevy (Stanley Simmons), are something too exaggerated for the film’s realistic environment.
This is where Levack’s cynicism comes in: This is a movie that can’t believe how stupid smart women act when there is a man who puts in the absolute naked minimum. This feeling is most clearly encountered in a sex scene that is both fun and important for the action, since the terminally indifferent Chevy literally is only there while a confused grace does all the work.
By comparison, his romantic rival Archie (Devon Bostick) is a strange, but a more credible, and Bostick’s embarrass with Ferreira has a specific type of romantic chemistry that is common to hyperintelligent, socially difficult nerds. But again, although it may be a by -product of the self -absorbed protagonist’s point of view, the life and motivations for each of these characters remain outside being two guys in the same band who fight for the same woman’s attention. Again, it is a bit refreshing to get men to play the one -dimensional love interests in a movie for once.
Sometimes the “Mile End Kicks” seems to reach a broader, more increased comedy style à la and 80’s teenage sex. Some of these jokes are fun, but the changes in tone are sudden, and it takes some beats for the film to recover every time. But the fact that she can pull them off at all speaks well for the movie that Levack is currently doing with Adam Sandler – is applied consistently during an entire movie, she could quite successfully direct something quite stupid.
In the meantime, the gripping pieces are consistent at point. A #metoo-inspired office history (it is the problem with her old editor, which is played contemptuously by Jay Baruchel) fits better here than a similar sub-plan in “I Like Movies”, perhaps because it is experienced by the protagonist himself. It also gives us the film’s most heartfelt moment, because Grace, which is the last in the office as usual, beckons with his arms to keep the motion sensor lamps on and cry all the time.
Ferreira is a credible and sympathetic protagonist who gives a vulnerability to grace that makes the viewer root for her even when she bursts her life for reasons even if she does not seem to understand. She wants to be a critic, but she also wants to be liked. The tension between these situations is the gender, which Grace recognizes when she finally writes something she believes in late in the movie. (It also helps that Grace, via levack, is actually a good writer.) Navigate that excitement is something you learn with experience – the topic of Chandler Levack’s next movie, maybe?
Rating: B.
“Mile End Kicks” premiered at the Toronto Film Festival 2025. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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