In Montreal, a young woman in a Spin magazine T-shirt stares furiously at the blank document on her 2011 MacBook. The scene from the new movie Mile End Kicks could have been ripped from its director Chandler Levack’s own life, when the former film and music critic traded Toronto for Montreal’s exploding music scene.
In 2022, Levack caught a wave with her first film I Like Movies, about a teen who makes film fandom his whole personality.
The smartly observed character helped open doors, which led to Mile End Kicks, her second release.
But if I Like Movies was a wave, Levack is now riding a tsunami, with Mile End Kicks and her third feature, Roommates, both opening April 17, in theatres and on Netflix, respectively.
Speaking with CBC News, Levack was still trying to get her head around it.
“It’s very surreal. I just feel like I crossed into, like, a multiverse or … a timeline that I was never supposed to be in.”
WATCH | Mile End Kicks trailer:
Montreal, summer of 2011
Loosely based on Levack’s time in the city, Mile End Kicks follows Grace, played by Euphoria star Barbie Ferreira, an aspiring music writer who moves to Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood.
For Levack, Montreal in the summer of 2011 was the nexus of an amazing music scene.
“I saw the birth of so many iconic artists — like Grimes and Mac DeMarco, Tops and Cadence Weapon — and was just kind of completely blown away by just being even getting to be a part of that scene, as tangentially and awkwardly as I was.
“That was the first time in my life where my life felt as good as a movie.”
It was actually another movie — the seminal rock critic story Almost Famous (2000) — that set her on this path, inspiring Levack to drop out of university and leading her to writing assignments for Spin and The Village Voice.
But Mile End Kicks captures a perspective missing from many music scene movies: that of a young woman. Levack says her time in the rock-and-roll trenches, surrounded by mostly male colleagues, left an impression.
“I think I kind of deluded myself, and I always thought that I was just a peer of everybody’s. But being a 22-year-old woman in a male-dominated space who’s writing about music, it’s sort of like a dog that can walk on their hind legs or something.”
While the film shows Grace bumping up against the bro culture, it also makes time for one of Levack’s musical heroes, Canadian Alanis Morissette. In Mile End Kicks, a writing assignment about Morissette is what brings Grace to Montreal.
And in real life, Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill album was another turning point for Levack.
“[Alanis] dealt with a lot of sexism and exploitation by record executives and producers.… Jagged Little Pill is, really, her trying to reclaim her own story and find her voice.”
Meanwhile, Levack didn’t hold back when helping Ferreira get into character.
“Me at 24? I was telling Barbie, ‘You’re playing, like, basically Hannibal Lecter.’ She’s a total disaster,” she said.
“She’s crying on the floor in American Apparel disco shorts and there’s a half-eaten poutine on her bed. And she’s crying about some guy that does not like her. And that’s OK.”
For Levack, seeing audiences connect to her main character’s messiness has been one of the most gratifying aspects.
“It just is a testament to, if you truly make your own weirdo singular art … and you try to be honest, then it’s gonna connect with people.”
WATCH | Roommates trailer:
A hectic schedule
But Levack has little time to revel in the reaction, as she juggles the release of her third film, Roommates.
How did the Canadian director end up speed-running her career? In the midst of the post-production for Mile End Kicks, she received an offer to direct Roommates, a college comedy produced by American actor Adam Sandler and starring his daughter Sadie.
“It was really nuts…. I was flying back and forth like every weekend from New Jersey to Toronto.”
Considering the long gestation process of working through the COVID-19 pandemic to get I Like Movies made, the release schedule is a whirlwind, she says: “Yeah, two and three out like that. It’s like I gave birth to twins.”
But along the way, Levack has gotten to see another side of Sandler, spending a year with him and his family.
“He’s really committed to telling stories that his daughters, like, can really see and identify themselves with. He saw a potential in me that I didn’t even know that I had because [Roommates] is, like, a big studio comedy,” she said.
“It’s very rare that female directors get to helm big studio comedies.”
While Levack still misses brunch at Toronto’s Future Bistro or catching a movie at the Revue Cinema in the city’s West End, she’s adapting to her new life in Los Angeles, where Canadian films are riding high.
“I was in L.A. on Valentine’s Day watching Matt Johnson and Jay McCarroll do two back-to-back Q&A, right?” she said, referring to the co-creators of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. “Just sold out. Like, rapturous crowds, men in fedoras.”
With two movies opening on the same day, it’s safe to say that Canadian writer and director Chandler Levack is having a moment. For The National, CBC’s Eli Glasner asks Levack about her latest projects —Mile End Kicks and Roommates — and how a university dropout turned music critic became one of the country’s hottest new filmmakers.
Along with that film, her own titles and the upcoming Blue Heron from Sophy Romvari, Levack says Canadian cinema is having a moment.
“Everyone I know, they just want to see Canadian movies — and they’re so excited about what’s going on there. Heated Rivalry, too,” she said.
“It just feels like this really banner year for Canadian culture at a time when a certain president is threatening to make us one of his new states, right? And yet our art is travelling.”
