{"id":202020,"date":"2025-09-05T10:09:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T10:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/202020\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T10:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T10:09:12","slug":"barbie-ferreira-and-chandler-levack-make-movie-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/202020\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbie Ferreira and Chandler Levack Make Movie Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hilarious, slyly self-deprecating and yet deeply compassionate, writer\/director Chandler Levack\u2019s delightful gem of a movie \u201cMile End Kicks\u201d is one that already feels like it has all the makings of a coming-of-age classic for a new generation. It\u2019s a work that\u2019s profoundly attuned to character and refreshingly willing to poke fun at itself just as it finds an ultimate grace in the journey, making for a complete portrait with all its character\u2019s rough edges intact.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMile End Kicks\u201d perfectly recalls that chaotic time of being in your 20s with the world opening up before you just as you realize there is much you\u2019re still sorting your way through. Though in clear conversation with a film like \u201cAlmost Famous<\/a>,\u201d Cameron Crowe can only wish he was still making movies as emotionally engaging, vibrant and alive as this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Through Levack\u2019s perceptive direction and sharp writing, we come to see all the many facets of a 23-year-old music critic named Grace Pine. Driven yet still with much to discover about herself, she is attempting to make a go of it in 2011\u2019s Montreal and the bustling music scene after leaving Toronto in the rearview.\u00a0Embodying both her passion and uncertainty is an excellent Barbie Ferreira\u00a0who, while perhaps known to most for her breakout role in the initially interesting HBO series \u201cEuphoria<\/a>,\u201d has found not just a great creative partner in Levack, but her best role yet. With filmmaker and actor working in complete synchronicity with each other, Grace becomes a fully realized and complex character. In Ferreira\u2019s every perfectly timed comedic delivery or more revealing look as Grace sets her determined sights on something possibly self-destructive, you\u2019re completely swept up in the performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the moment she arrives in Montreal, all of which is shot with an eye for the little details by cinematographer Jeremy Cox, we see in Ferreira\u2019s every move Grace\u2019s relatable desire to take in all this new life has to offer. When she writes a to-do list for herself (on an old-fashioned notes app that immediately feels quaint when compared to our present social media-driven hellscape), you understand that relatable ambition just as you also sense that she is moving quite fast. <\/p>\n

In quick succession, Grace meets a kind roommate with challenges of her own, played by a great Juliette Gari\u00e9py of last year\u2019s frequently riveting \u201cRed Rooms,\u201d finds herself drawn to a boy in a band (Stanley Simons), and begins a complicated relationship with his bandmate (Devon Bostick) who, as is revealed in a fun little shot as they ascend winding stairs that mirror each other, is also her neighbor. On top of all this, Grace has gotten approval to write a book on Alanis Morissette<\/a>\u2019s \u201cJagged Little Pill\u201d for the 33 1\/3 album exploration series, but her attention quickly drifts to these other things in her life, leaving the draft she really ought to be working on untouched for increasingly stress-inducing stretches of time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You subsequently grow worried for her just as she pushes away pressing issues, but the film remains light on its feet as it explores this. Just as she did in her similarly sharp-witted and reflective 2022 feature debut \u201cI Like Movies,\u201d\u00a0Levack brings a warm, lived-in texture to every detail of the grounded world she builds. Every rooftop party, record store, or messy band practice room we wander through feels as though they\u2019re all real places that have been plucked from time. There is a rich, loving detail to all of this just as Levack never settles into one emotional register and encourages us to sit with more uncomfortable moments as well.<\/p>\n

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As was the case with \u201cI Like Movies\u201d and the story of the troubled young Lawrence (Isaiah Lehtinen) trying to make cinema though frequently driving away those around him, \u201cMile End Kicks\u201d is an earnest film about Grace pursuing her passion just as much as it\u2019s about gently capturing her flaws. Both films don\u2019t sugarcoat the pain the duo is carrying with them or the pitfalls that they stumble into, instead merging the two in a full portrait as emotionally potent as it is playful. That there is one simple scene where Lehtinen, great in brief moments playing another member of the band, shares a moment opposite Ferreira feels like a fitting representation of how the film expands upon some of the same ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMile High Kicks\u201d isn\u2019t a film that\u2019s about changing the coming-of-age genre or upending it as much as it is making a fresh new take that looks at it from a distinct, unflinching perspective. The more we are taken on this journey through Grace\u2019s early foray into adulthood, the more it earns its classic coming-of-age beats while also cutting into something deeper it can call its own. It wins you over in every gentle escalation before tying it all together in an unexpectedly sweet final scene, giving its character a moment of earned grace from where she least expected it. Not everyone will relate to being a critic navigating the mess of their early 20s, nor does the film compromise to win them over, but for this one, it cements Levack as an astute filmmaker worth following to whatever she puts her pen and camera to next.<\/p>\n

Read all of our Toronto Film Festival coverage here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hilarious, slyly self-deprecating and yet deeply compassionate, writer\/director Chandler Levack\u2019s delightful gem of a movie \u201cMile End Kicks\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":202021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,111637,53,64287,111058,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-202020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-mile-end-kicks","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-tiff","12":"tag-tiff-2025","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115151147474828984","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}