The past year has seen a renewal in movies exploring a perennial theme the self-aggrandizing Hollywood machine has been pondering since the dawn of moving images: the minutiae of filmmaking itself. Whether charting a fraught and debaucherous transitional period for the commercial art form (Babylon) or serving as a biographical exercise for an established master (The Fabelmans), there were a lot of movies ostensibly about movies, with each striving to make profound observations as to why they matter.
Mileage varies on this recent crop of self-reflective films, but Chandler Levack's I Like Movies is one that can't be missed. It stands out as a truly vulnerable, knowing and affectionate dissection of cinephilia as we know it today, placing the kind of movie love that is propagated on Letterboxd and Reddit, and insufferably exhibited in college classrooms, directly in its crosshairs. Anyone who has considered themselves a movie nerd will see themselves reflected in the exacting cringe comedy of I Like Movies, and that's what makes it so unforgettable.
Set during the early 2000s in Levack's hometown of Burlington, ON, the titular refrain of "I like movies" is repeatedly uttered by socially awkward and emotionally stunted 17-year-old Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen). A stereotypical film bro, he is the type to worship at the altar of Paul Thomas Anderson and would rather watch Spartacus or Goodfellas alone than go to parties with his peers (not that he would be invited anyway).
A self-described "reject" at his high school due to his overblown sense of superiority and excruciating movie opinions, Lawrence clings to his only friend, Matt (Percy Hynes White), while dreaming of the day he can attend NYU Tisch School of the Arts, leave his hometown behind and be among his own people. To pay for this pipe dream, he works part-time at a video rental store (naturally), where he strikes up an uneasy friendship with his burnt-out manager Alana (Romina D'ugo). Essentially, Lawrence embodies that obstructive presence everyone who has taken Film 101 has undoubtedly encountered.
In part due to Rico Moran's airy and spacious cinematography, the suburbs of Southern Ontario are given a culturally inert vibe that fails to reflect the lofty film fantasies of the film's protagonist. While heartening threads of early to mid-aughts Canadian pop culture poke through the film's frigid veneer — a Swollen Members needle drop in Lawrence's student film, a display at his store for Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World — I Like Movies is thoroughly and empathetically wired to the point of view of Lawrence, who only wishes to leave these dreary surroundings. Levack has deftly seized upon the definitive coming-of-age, 2000s-era tale, where cinema was the only potential for escape from the confines of suburbia.
As played by the engrossing Lehtinen, Lawrence comes across as a delightfully intolerable blowhard and delicate narcissist who tragically becomes the architect of his own loneliness. Lehtinen embodies the insufferable teenager and film bro with pointed comedic grace, whether he's pestering customers to make better selections (i.e. the ones he likes) or taking advantage of his long-suffering mother (Krista Bridges).
The lived-in details of the character come through effortlessly from Lehtinen's anchoring performance. This is particularly apparent in the moments where I Like Movies plays a skilful emotional balancing act, especially when portraying Lawrence's debilitating social disorders. (Move over Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, there is a new devastatingly-accurate-portrayal-of-a-panic-attack scene on the block.)
While I have repeatedly emphasized how much of an incisive and uniformly hilarious lampoon of snobbish film buffs Levack's script trades in, Lawrence is far from a one-note caricature. The writer-director has maintained, despite the interesting gender-swap of its protagonist, that there is a degree of autobiographical self-owning happening in I Like Movies, which is entirely believable given how seriously the film takes its subject.
Levack both lovingly pokes fun at her movie geek adolescence while ensuring we will care deeply for the wayward Lawrence. When the film pivots from a send-up of youthful movie snobs to a sensitive look at the challenges of growing up, it can catch audiences completely off guard in the most moving ways. The story becomes cathartic — not just for the filmmaker, but for the audience members who get swept into the palpable nostalgic display.
I Like Movies is something special: a sharp, touching film which earnestly highlights the highs and lows that emerge when one makes cinema such a prominent part of their personality during those formative, socially awkward teenage years. It's a bewitching love/hate letter to the idealism of young film fans coming of age in environments that can't match their celluloid-laden daydreams. Heartwarming, hilarious and devastating in equal measures, I Like Movies is a triumph of cinephilia in itself.
(Mongrel Media)Mileage varies on this recent crop of self-reflective films, but Chandler Levack's I Like Movies is one that can't be missed. It stands out as a truly vulnerable, knowing and affectionate dissection of cinephilia as we know it today, placing the kind of movie love that is propagated on Letterboxd and Reddit, and insufferably exhibited in college classrooms, directly in its crosshairs. Anyone who has considered themselves a movie nerd will see themselves reflected in the exacting cringe comedy of I Like Movies, and that's what makes it so unforgettable.
Set during the early 2000s in Levack's hometown of Burlington, ON, the titular refrain of "I like movies" is repeatedly uttered by socially awkward and emotionally stunted 17-year-old Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen). A stereotypical film bro, he is the type to worship at the altar of Paul Thomas Anderson and would rather watch Spartacus or Goodfellas alone than go to parties with his peers (not that he would be invited anyway).
A self-described "reject" at his high school due to his overblown sense of superiority and excruciating movie opinions, Lawrence clings to his only friend, Matt (Percy Hynes White), while dreaming of the day he can attend NYU Tisch School of the Arts, leave his hometown behind and be among his own people. To pay for this pipe dream, he works part-time at a video rental store (naturally), where he strikes up an uneasy friendship with his burnt-out manager Alana (Romina D'ugo). Essentially, Lawrence embodies that obstructive presence everyone who has taken Film 101 has undoubtedly encountered.
In part due to Rico Moran's airy and spacious cinematography, the suburbs of Southern Ontario are given a culturally inert vibe that fails to reflect the lofty film fantasies of the film's protagonist. While heartening threads of early to mid-aughts Canadian pop culture poke through the film's frigid veneer — a Swollen Members needle drop in Lawrence's student film, a display at his store for Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World — I Like Movies is thoroughly and empathetically wired to the point of view of Lawrence, who only wishes to leave these dreary surroundings. Levack has deftly seized upon the definitive coming-of-age, 2000s-era tale, where cinema was the only potential for escape from the confines of suburbia.
As played by the engrossing Lehtinen, Lawrence comes across as a delightfully intolerable blowhard and delicate narcissist who tragically becomes the architect of his own loneliness. Lehtinen embodies the insufferable teenager and film bro with pointed comedic grace, whether he's pestering customers to make better selections (i.e. the ones he likes) or taking advantage of his long-suffering mother (Krista Bridges).
The lived-in details of the character come through effortlessly from Lehtinen's anchoring performance. This is particularly apparent in the moments where I Like Movies plays a skilful emotional balancing act, especially when portraying Lawrence's debilitating social disorders. (Move over Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, there is a new devastatingly-accurate-portrayal-of-a-panic-attack scene on the block.)
While I have repeatedly emphasized how much of an incisive and uniformly hilarious lampoon of snobbish film buffs Levack's script trades in, Lawrence is far from a one-note caricature. The writer-director has maintained, despite the interesting gender-swap of its protagonist, that there is a degree of autobiographical self-owning happening in I Like Movies, which is entirely believable given how seriously the film takes its subject.
Levack both lovingly pokes fun at her movie geek adolescence while ensuring we will care deeply for the wayward Lawrence. When the film pivots from a send-up of youthful movie snobs to a sensitive look at the challenges of growing up, it can catch audiences completely off guard in the most moving ways. The story becomes cathartic — not just for the filmmaker, but for the audience members who get swept into the palpable nostalgic display.
I Like Movies is something special: a sharp, touching film which earnestly highlights the highs and lows that emerge when one makes cinema such a prominent part of their personality during those formative, socially awkward teenage years. It's a bewitching love/hate letter to the idealism of young film fans coming of age in environments that can't match their celluloid-laden daydreams. Heartwarming, hilarious and devastating in equal measures, I Like Movies is a triumph of cinephilia in itself.
