An “Almost Famous” poster hangs in the childhood bedroom that Grace (Barbie Ferreira) is about to leave in “Mile End Kicks,” taking off for Montreal where the music scene was exploding in the late 2000s as acts like Arcade Fire and Grimes were working out their music in local clubs. It should be noted that it doesn’t appear as if the poster will be making the trip as Grace starts saying her goodbyes in Toronto, but it would be impossible for writer/director Chandler Levack not to nod in the direction of the Cameron Crowe classic when her splendid second feature tracks the hopes and dreams of a music journalist and looms large in the popular consciousness of what the job is really like. Still, for Grace as a woman finding her footing in the industry, the reality is entirely different than it was for Crowe’s loosely fictional alter ego William Miller and when the two both established filmmaking careers after writing for Rolling Stone at one time or another, Levack offers up a film that’s worthy of comparison as far as quality and the contrasts prove revelatory.
Levack cleverly shows how difficult it is to be part of the same conversation simply by following Grace to work at Merge Magazine where she always stands outside the periphery of the debates carried on by her male colleagues about the best bands, despite trawling the clubs at night for the next big thing. While struggling to see the rewards in continuing to go to the office, she isn’t getting them elsewhere from the company when her invoices for payment are long overdue, and upon mentioning a change of scenery to her editor (Jay Baruchel), he puts in a good word for an Alanis Morissette book proposal that would allow her to resettle in Montreal, but counting on him to come through with the $4000 she’s still owed once she finds a roommate (Juliette Gariépy) willing to put her up is one innocent assumption of many that comes back to bite her. Fresh off a lovely seriocomic performance in “Bob Trevino Likes It,” Ferreira delivers another indelible turn as someone who clearly doesn’t have all the answers just yet, with Grace not only mishandling her finances but quite possibly her love life as well when she accepts an invite to see her roommate’s boyfriend’s band Bone Patrol and instantly takes a shine to their irascible lead singer Hugo (Robert Naylor) though it’s their lower key bassist Archie (Devon Bostick) she’d clearly be better off with.
“Mile End Kicks” actually predates Levack’s incisive debut “I Like Movies” as far as when it was first penned, with the director told by her producers that she’d need to prove herself on a smaller feature before telling of her formative time in Montreal, yet seen in reverse, it builds on one of that film’s great strengths where a hopeless movie buff (Isiah Lehtinen) was given a dose of reality by the manager at his local video store (Romina D’Ugo), who can’t entirely let go of her passion for movies in spite of a crushing experience in trying to pursue a career in them. Grace is cut from the same cloth as you imagine the latter was first pursuing her dreams, still wide-eyed and innocent as she imagines the rewards for all those late nights at the office or the clubs that make up for a host of indignities. She’s pulled into the same cycle even after moving west, taking on pro bono work as a publicist for Bone Patrol when she should be turning in chapters for her book out of a misguided hope it’ll help her score points with Hugo.
Levack is unsparing when it comes to the self-destructive behavior that Grace will have to recognize before she can move on, though as much as the character needs the gut check, the film provides one to audiences when the director cleverly structures the film so that some of Grace’s worst impulses can be seen being born out of the way she’s been mistreated in the past. While Levack may have had to wait a decade to make “Mile End Kicks,” the film seems to get the best of all possible perspectives when it is full of passionate energy, recreating an exciting artistic scene pulsing with possibility while at the same time conscious of how much of that can be seen through rose-tinted glasses before a certain idealism starts to fall away. It isn’t only the romantic notions Grace holds for the the bad boy who only draws her towards him more the less interest he shows in her, but the culture as a whole where certain pretensions come to light. Yet as Grace readjusts what she values, Levack sees the worth in all of it, generously spending time in dance halls with original music from the Montreal bands TOPS and spoken word gatherings where the the allure of the life that the writer lusts after can be simultaneously seductive and frustrating as there are plenty of opportunities for procrastination and the hard-won benefits can be fleeting. It can seem as Grace will have to endure every wrong move to find her way to happiness, but when Levack is making every right one as a storyteller, there’s a sense she’ll be alright and the director delivers a film that satisfies as a fizzy romantic comedy with familiar pleasures, but comes across as the kind of exciting discovery that makes digging deeper for a thousand-word thinkpiece a worthwhile career choice. Still, “Mile End Kicks” is reason to be grateful that Levack decided to tackle a different line of work.
“Mile End Kicks” does not yet have U.S. distribution. It will next screen at the Vancouver Film Festival at 9 pm on October 5th at the Rio Theatre and October 6th at the Fifth Avenue Cinema.