If you’ve ever moved to a new city to reinvent yourself, dated two guys from the same indie rock band, or wished you could travel back to the early 2010s, Mile End Kicks is the rom-com for you. 

Mile End Kicks is not only a love story, but a tale of self-discovery, capturing the messy twists and turns of one young woman’s search for her voice and agency in her career and relationships. It’s summer 2011, and 23-year-old music critic Grace Pine is moving to Montreal, determined to write a book about Alanis Morissette. Instead, she meets two guys from the same struggling indie rock band, falls in love with them both…and becomes the band’s publicist. 


Chandler Levack’s deeply relatable sophomore feature premiered at TIFF in September 2025, and SheDoesTheCity featured the journalist-turned-filmmaker as our September Artist of the Month. With Mile End Kicks in theatres now (and Levack’s college comedy film Roommates also premiering today on Netflix), we’re revisiting our interview with Levack to share even more of our conversation for a deeper dive into this rom-com that has resonated with so many women. 

For our readers who haven’t yet seen Mile End Kicks, can you describe the character of Grace and what she goes through in the film?

She’s young. She, like many of us, thinks that if she can move to an exciting new city she can change her life, until she invariably realizes that she has to bring herself with her. She loves emotionally unavailable guys. She purposely sets out to try and date the worst guy in Montreal and make him fall in love with her by using her music journalism powers. She’s just avoiding stuff and is afraid to deal with things, but hopefully, fundamentally, is a good person.

What can you tell us about the story of creating Mile End Kicks? How did it first come to be?

I started writing the script 10 years ago, in 2015. At that time I’d never written anything personal before. I was looking after a friend’s cat in Montreal while they were on their honeymoon. And I was like, okay, for the first time in your life, just take this month and only write a screenplay. Use it as an opportunity to just write something that you’re excited about. And I’ve always loved romantic comedies, and I wanted to write one that was sort of based on my own experiences, and maybe also my experiences as a young female music journalist. At that time, I was 27, which was three or four years older than the character. And now, I’m 38. So it’s been an interesting journey of revisiting the movie again after I Like Movies.

I Like Movies was also a coming-of-age story, but told from a teenage boy’s perspective. What was the biggest difference this time around, making Mile End Kicks from a woman’s perspective?

There is something that is a little bit more visceral when it’s a young woman. The gender switch in I Like Movies made me able to have a little bit more distance, but this felt a little bit more visceral in maybe a good way. I think in the reception of the movie, it’ll be interesting. Unfortunately, sometimes people are way more harsh on female characters. With Lawrence, I think people offer him a certain amount of grace, maybe because he’s a young man. That film was really trying to talk about male entitlement. And this film was really trying to talk about women trying to unpack themselves from toxic masculinity. Needing the male gaze, hating the male gaze, thinking that you are impervious to it, but still being trapped by it. It was surprising to me that it was hard to admit that about myself too.

Barbie Ferreira was amazing in the film. What was it like working with her and seeing her bring your character to life?

It was very moving to me. She just brought so much to the character. She understood her so innately. She wanted to protect her, but also didn’t want to shy away from the vulnerability of her. It’s a very courageous and vanity-free performance. She really only wanted to be authentic and true and real. There were so many moments on set, like every day, where I was just in awe of her commitment to the part.

Alanis Morissette is at the center of Mile End Kicks—her music is the impetus for Grace to make her big move to Montreal. What’s your connection to her? 

Jagged Little Pill was the first thing that made me realize I loved music. I heard that album for the first time, I was eight years old, and it just unlocked something in me. I went home and I played that tape backwards and forwards and memorized all the lyrics. I would pour over the album. I just thought about that album so deeply. It really changed my life. So for me, that’s always been a very pivotal album, and it just kind of made sense that that would be the thing that she’d want to make a 33 1/3 about. And then, as I was writing the movie, and editing especially, the more I found out about Alanis’ story, the more I felt like her journey, in many, many uncanny ways, parallels Grace’s. I just kept finding new layers to her and to Grace.

What are some reactions you’ve received to the film that have stood out to you? 

I’m moved by anyone that wants to talk about it, that connects to it strongly. It’s nice that it feels like it’s connected to people of different ages too. I’ve had a lot of young, Gen Z women come up to me and be like, oh my god, that’s my life. And in some ways, it really breaks my heart, because I’m like, oh my god, this is still happening? You’re dating the Chevy now? When I was much younger, it was shows like Girls and movies like Frances Ha that could really help me feel less alone and understood. The movie is taking inspiration from those things. It would be great if it can be something that people relate to. 

Is there anything about the making of the film, maybe a behind-the-scenes tidbit, that people would be surprised to know about?

There’s a fictional band in the movie called Bone Patrol, and all the actors really learned how to become a real band. Devon Bostick, who plays Archie, is so wonderful and really deserves his flowers as much as Barbie does in this movie, because he’s extraordinary. He never played guitar before, and he learned how to play guitar for this movie. And then Isaiah Lehtinen, who plays Jesse, plays bass. The song, Korean Supermarket, that’s Stanley’s original song he wrote that he plays in the film. Robert Naylor plays drums. So they became a real rock band for the summer. They would have dedicated band practice days where they would jam out. Not only did we create a rom-com, we also created a rock band.

Mile End Kicks is in theatres now.