Like movies? This kid loves them

David Cronenberg, James Cameron, and Denis Villeneuve aren’t the only notable filmmakers who’ve come from the Great White North. Add to that list Chandler Levack, who made a splash on the indie circuit with her feature debut I Like Movies (2022). This dramedy follows Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen, who could easily start in a Peter Lorre biopic), an irascible, self-absorbed 17-year-old "film bro" in early-2000s Burlington, Ontario, who is fiercely determined to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. To fund his impossible tuition, Lawrence gets a job at a local video rental store called Sequels, where his rigid cinematic pretension and deep-seated emotional baggage alienate his long-suffering single mother, Terri (Krista Bridges), and his only friend, Matt Macarchuk (Percy Hynes White), while driving a highly complicated, boundary-testing relationship with his older store manager, Alana (Romina D'Ugo).

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of I Like Movies, conducted last week, click here.

While it’s somewhat of a love letter to the movies, with ample Easter eggs and film title name-drops – from Spartacus, Happiness, and Wild Things to Punch Drunk Love, Steel Magnolias, and Sophie’s Choice (the punchline of a great visual joke in the film) – I Like Movies doesn’t actually romanticize cinema, neither the making nor the watching of films. Although Lawrence is a passionate cinephile whom we admire for his knowledge of and dedication to filmmaking, the movie presents him as culturally snobbish, intellectually self-absorbed, dismissive of female filmmakers, and behaviorally problematic to significant others.

The surprise centerpiece of the film is (spoilers ahead) Alana’s sudden revelation that she was sexually harassed by a film producer, an experience that soured her completely on cinema and causes her to be triggered when Lawrence blathers on about his filmmaking aspirations and college goals. We are reminded that many women have been exploited and abused in Hollywood history, and so few females are ever given positions of power in the film industry.

This message is echoed in the subplot involving Lauren, Matt’s new girlfriend, who wants to collaborate with the two boys on their school film project, but is condescended to and rejected by Lawrence. Later, after Lauren has completed the project as director and editor, we see in her finished student film that she has noteworthy talent and vision – a truth even Lawrence acknowledges.

What’s most fascinating about the picture, however, is the dichotomy of the main character: an unlikably fussy, pretentious, myopic, outspoken, and frequently isolating egotist who can also be warm, gracious, and sympathetic. Critic Sarah Milner wrote: “I like Movies strikes the right balance between vulnerable and loathsome, presenting a character we can root for, even as we disapprove of his actions.”

It’s interesting to learn that this picture is somewhat autobiographical. Levack previously worked as a teenager in a video store. But she resisted the impulse to write the main character as a female, choosing an adolescent boy instead to prove that female filmmakers can also successfully create male-centered narratives.

This certainly checks the “coming of age” thematic category. Lawrence is an awkward teenager preparing to make the transition from high school to college, shedding friends and making new ones in the process. I Like Movies is a modern “rite of passage” classic that provides a snapshot of an adolescent clumsily maneuvering within a crucial period and a limited window of time.

But even more so, the film espouses the power of empathy. Lawrence learns the hard way that the world doesn’t revolve around him or his film bro culture. Alana teaches him that maturity and personal development require active listening and seeing the world outside of one's narrow lens. By the story’s conclusion, Lawrence appears less narcissistic, naïve, insular, arrogant, and antisocial.

It’s also about the lasting ramifications of grief and loss, and how life comes with compromises. Lawrence and his mother Terri are still struggling to cope with his father’s suicide years earlier – a devastating event that has made it harder for the teenager to emotionally navigate his life and harmonize with her. Ultimately, Lawrence is not accepted into the NYU film program, and must settle for a more affordable and realistic backup college. Earlier, we learned that Alana also had to sacrifice her dreams and pivot to a contingency plan; her aspirations of becoming a film actor were traumatically crushed, and she had to come home and become a manager for a video store – a position she eventually leaves. We also hear how Terri was forced by her mother to choose among three professions; she acquiesced and became a low-paying office secretary.

Similar works

• Clerks (1994)
• Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
• Rushmore (1998)
• High Fidelity (2000)
• Ghost World (2001)
• Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
• Be Kind Rewind (2008)
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)
• Lady Bird (2017)
• Licorice Pizza (2021)
• Funny Pages (2022)