TORONTO – Barbie Ferreira is the real deal. Yes, that Barbie Ferreira. And, happily, that’s the biggest takeaway from the wonderfully entertaining romantic dramedy “Mile End Kicks,” a world premiere this past week at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival. Oh, and objectively, so is writer and director Chandler Levack, and Ferreira’s co-stars Devon Bostick and Stanley Simmons. But this movie is Ferreira’s moment, and she rules.
Inspired by Levack’s own life as a music journalist, the “mile end” in the title refers to a celebrated, creative neighborhood in Montreal. Full warning, “Kicks” is a very Canadian movie and wears its pride on its hipster sleeves. In fact, it’s so Canadian that the countless digs at Toronto from the Montreal-based characters drew increasingly fewer laughs from the Ontario residents at its public premiere (I mean, everyone else thought it was funny).
Early twentysomething Grace (Ferreira), a music journalist and critic like Levack, arrives in the MTL for the summer, intending to write a 33 1/3 book about Alanis Morissette. She rents a room from the stunning up-and-coming DJ Madeline (Juliette Gariépy) and immediately meets her French-speaking, only, mind you, and barely clothed boyfriend, Hugo (Robert Naylor). The latter is sort of a jerk, but Grace gets pulled into seeing his band, Bone Patrol, perform live that night. It’s 2011, and the Montreal music scene is bustling. Grace picked the right summer to get out of Toronto.
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Hugo’s band is led by the brash, but also unexpectedly awkward Chevy (Stanley Simmons) and good guy guitarist Archie (Devon Bostick). The final Bone member is Jessie (Isaiah Lehtinen), but he’s gay, so whatever, right? (One of the few ‘What?” narratives in the film). As the days progress, there are house parties and performance gigs, and Grace falls for the increasingly narcissistic and, um, strange Chevy even though Archie is right there. I mean, he’s right there. And he’s falling for her. Although, to be fair, when you ask someone to have sex with you and they say they are celibate, it might be a turn-off. Archie also somewhat resembles Grace’s former boss, which we’ll assume was a very intentional casting decision by Levack.
She won’t admit it, but Grace ran away from Toronto. She needed to get away. At her last gig, a Toronto weekly, the aforementioned boss, Jeff (Jay Baruchel), would invite her into his office to have sex. And when the sex columnist was let go, he had her write up reviews of sex toys for the website. Levack makes it obvious that the news outlet was a boy’s club. Gracie simply thought she couldn’t say no. Not great. But, even though she’s 343 miles away in Quebec, she can’t escape him. He has not processed a $4,000 invoice, which she desperately needs to pay her rent. She may be forced to return home to confront him about it.
Over this particular summer, Grace makes a lot of mistakes. She spends too much time with the increasingly shallow Chevy, she destroys a potential lifetime publishing contact, almost gets kicked out on the street by Madeline, and has her own narcissistic phase she’ll shudder at years later. The good news is that Ferreira and Levack find a way to navigate Grace’s inevitable personal growth spurt without making it seem trite. Levack’s screenplay also provides Ferreira an opportunity to demonstrate a quiet subtlety she hasn’t had in her previous roles. Grace f**’s up, and Ferreira makes her own it.
It doesn’t hurt that Levack’s screenplay is also quite funny. Bostick pops off the screen, but it’s his natural comedic timing that keeps everything in Grace and Archie’s relationship grounded. That’s not an easy tone to navigate, but Levack delivers a dramedy that telegraphs the inevitable romance, while taking an unexpected path to get there.
But despite a stellar ensemble (Simmons deserves genuine praise), Ferreira steals her own movie. She’s never been the lead in a film before, and she’s an absolute natural. Almost unrecognizable from the HBO Series that made her a social media celebrity, some viewers will think the actress playing Grace is a newcomer. Nope, she’s been here for years. It just took a filmmaker like Levack to let her grab the spotlight. [B]
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