TIFF25: “Mile Ends Kicks” is “Almost Famous” for the Aughts
This review was originally published on Film Obsessive.
Ah, the early twenties. A time filled with overwhelming self-confidence and crippling insecurity. It’s a one-two punch that allows you to swing for the fences, but also be afraid to run the bases. Such is true for the main protagonist of Mile End Kicks. The film is the sophomore work from Chandler Levack, whose 2022 I Like Movies launched her as a Canadian filmmaker to watch. I Like Movies premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, and she has returned in 2025 with Mile End Kicks. Much like her first film, Mile End Kicks explores the intersection of passion, obsession, and the tunnel vision that can take you to new heights or burn down everything around you.
Mile End Kicks’ budding music critic Grace (Barbie Ferreira) really hates Toronto. She sees it as a place devoid of culture. Everyone who’s anyone is living and making art in Montreal. There’s a grunginess to the city that Grace craves and is desperate to experience, so she makes a rash decision to spend the summer in Montreal. She has pitched a 33 ⅓ about Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill and it has been accepted. With a meager book advance and a suitcase full of dreams, Grace moves in with a DJ (Juliette Gariépy) who’s renting out part of her apartment. Grace falls into a friendship with two of the band members of Bone Patrol, an indie rock group. The first is Archie (Devon Bostick). He’s a little socially awkward, but immediately kind to Grace. The other is Chevy (Stanley Simons). He is, pardon my French, a douchebag. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out who Grace is drawn to.
Mile End Kicks has immense reverence for 2011. It was a time when things felt simpler, especially for those who were just entering the adult world. Sure, the job market was still pretty terrible and young people complained about not being able to buy a house, but back then it felt more like the joke part of self-deprecating. Now there’s not usually a laugh after someone says they won’t ever be able to buy a house. It’s clear that Levack remembers this era fondly, and as someone who was a few years younger than Grace in 2011, there is an appreciation for when technology was prevalent but not all-consuming. We had Instagram, but everyone was still using the Valencia filter. Smart phones did what they were intended to do, connect people, but we didn’t have algorithms then. 2011 really was a semi-magical time of internet writing careers mixed with an ability to disconnect.
courtesy of TIFF
Many people will walk out of Mile End Kicks charmed. This will be Lady Bird for those who came of age in the aughts. Make no mistake, Mile End Kicks is expertly made. The actors have a deep understanding of the roles they’re playing and they add a vibrancy to the script that lacks a bit of what made I Like Movies such a crowd pleaser. Mile End Kicks benefits a lot from people filling in the gaps of Grace’s character with their own personal experiences. She’s the kind of terrible person we all were when we were that age. She’s unlikeable, but the sort of difficult character the audience has to be able to hold out hope for. It’s like Lady Bird: she’s reckless and selfish, but there are glimmers of who she’ll grow into. In Mile End Kicks, we get the inevitable moment where Grace realizes how her actions are impacting those around her, but it doesn’t feel earned.
This lack of resolution comes from how little we really know about Grace. Ferreira turns in a strong performance, but what’s missing is more from the script itself. Why is she a music critic? What made her willing to take this huge gamble on Montreal? Instead of seeing it, we’re told that she loves it. The same goes for her Alanis Morisette’s pitch to 33 ⅓. Grace says that Alanis spoke to her young, female rage in a way she hadn’t seen before, but we don’t really get a look at where this deep love comes from. Mile End Kicks is missing that hiring passion that so effortlessly pulsed through I Like Movies. For all intents and purposes, this should have been called I Like Music, and the love Grace has for music should have been palpable. Instead, it’s lukewarm at best. If this was just a film about a girl who hates her hometown and wants to try out life in the artsy city while making terrible, selfish decisions, perhaps the feeling Mile End Kicks leaves the audience with would be a little fuller. Levack is still one of the Canadian filmmakers to watch and Mile End Kicks will stir up a lot of positive nostalgia for many viewers, but for others it’ll feel more like a cover than an original.
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