Review of Mile End Kicks, directed by Chandler Levack

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

One things I’m trying to do in order to combat this is to watch movies that catch my interest in the moment. Sometimes it can be a highbrow intellectual movie, or it can be a trashy romcom that might not actually be any good. But if I’m in the mood for it, I press play and watch it.

And that’s how I ended up watching Mile End Kicks. I had not heard of it before, but the synopsis seemed interesting on Netflix, so I pressed play!

Let’s get into the review.

Leaving for Montreal in order to pursue writing a book on Alanis Morissette, one critic finds herself tangled up in the affairs of a local band.

The main character in this movie is Grace, and she’s 22 in the year 2011. She works at a magazine in Toronto where she writes music criticism, but she dreams of doing so much more with her writing and work. She makes an impulsive decision to go and move to Montreal after buying a Megabus ticket and gets an apartment on Craigslist.

The objective of her time there? She’s going to write a book on Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill. Upon arriving to her new home, she finds her roommate, Madeleine, having sex with her boyfriend Hugo. Turns out he’s the drummer for a local indie band, which plays a key role later.

Grace is offered a book deal for her book with a New York City publisher, which will come with a $500 advance before she has to offer the next segment of the book. Madeleine invites Grace to a loft party, where she meets Archie, the drummer for the band Hugo is in, and she smokes weed with him there.

The band, Bone Party, performs at the party and Grace has a massive crush on the lead singer: Chevy. Madeleine warns her against Chevy, saying he’s one of the worst people in town, but Grace still goes up to him and tries to have a discussion. She ends up leaving with Archie, they find out they really get along, and it turns out they’re next door neighbors!

But when Grace invites Archie to have sex with her, he reveals he doesn’t have sex. Then when Grace goes to a shoe store later, she discovers Chevy working there. He tells Grace the band is going to release an EP soon, and she ends up offering to become their publicist.

There’s a bigger problem before that: when she goes to pay Madeleine her rent, she finds out that she has no money in her bank account. Grace emails her former editor at the magazine and asks him about the $4,000 he owed her and said he would pay. Turns out she had an affair with her married editor and that ended up becoming a problem.

Grace procrastinates on her book to write the copy for a review on Bone Patrol’s EP for a local magazine. When she tries to have sex with Chevy, he tells her he only wants to have a professionally relationship—but not before they have a makeout session.

Her former editor insists that the invoice was processed and the money is coming, then Grace goes to a party. She wants to read an excerpt of her book at a poetry reading, and while she’s not there, Chevy makes a derogatory comment about her to Archie. As it’s Grace’s turn to read, she refuses to read the excerpt and then leaves with Chevy. They have sex at his place, but he randomly stops and tells her that he can’t have an erection with her.

Grace goes home and discovers her publishing deal has been revoked due to the fact she hasn’t been responding to her agent. Grace starts crying, then Madeleine tells her that she’s selfish and hasn’t paid rent for two months. The next day Grace meets with Archie and he reveals he doesn’t have sex because he has oral herpes, then confesses that he likes Grace.

He tells her what Chevy says after she says she’s with him, and Grace decides to move back home to Toronto. She goes to confront her former editor and asks for her money. She gets it. When Bone Patrol launches the EP, she goes back to Montreal and pays Madeleine, then she tells Chevy to screw off when he attempts to get back with her.

At a poetry reading, she reads a piece about being a female critic in an industry full of men. She heads home to Toronto with Archie, and the film ends with them preparing to have sex.

Overall Thoughts

Honestly, I had never heard of this film before watching it, and I thought that it was a solid movie for a random Thursday night after work. Did I find it to be groundbreaking? No, but considering I was a female critic on an all-male team, I really understand what Grace was getting at towards the end of the film. It’s tough.

This isn’t a movie that I think I would return to, but I appreciated her journey in the moment. Grace isn’t exactly a hero all the time. She makes some terrible decisions by the end of the movie, but it’s something that an idealistic 22-year-old would do in the moment as well.

I say watch this one if it interests you. It reminds me of how I need to watch movie Canadian movies in the near future. I’ve seen quite a few recently!

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