In Mile End Kicks, a young woman seeks a fresh start in a new city only to find she can’t leave her problems behind.
Grace (Barbie Ferreira) is a music critic, but she wants to write a 33 1/3 book about the album that changed her life: Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill. She moves from Toronto to Montreal, rents a room and begins squandering her savings. At a concert, she meets Archie (Devon Bostick), a guitarist, and Chevy (Stanley Simons), the lead singer. What follows is a bizarre love triangle.
Writer-director Chandler Levack also brought the awkward but loveable characters to the screen in 2023’s I Love Movies. This movie wants to follow the same path, but fails in some significant areas. The main weakness is most of the characters are unlikeable.
The film tries to incorporate a lot of different stereotypes and tropes in a single narrative. There’s the exploitive boss, enigmatic lead singer, sensitive guitar player, woman who stays in a bad relationship and girl who shirks her responsibilities to sow some oats. Levack tweaks each so they fit her depiction of a ragtag group of music-loving eccentrics, but it still feels contrived.
It’s a messy and frustrating journey as Grace figures out her life. Her low self-esteem perpetuates the same bad behaviour throughout most of the picture. But by the end, she finally uses her writing skills to dissect the film’s narrative.
Director: Chandler Levack
Starring: Barbie Ferreira, Jay Baruchel and Devon Bostick
