I Like Movies
Chandler
Levack (director and writer), Rico Moran (cinematography), Simone Smith
(editor)
Isaiah Lehtinen, Romina D'Ugo, Krista Bridges, Percy Hynes White, Alex Ateah,
Andy McQueen (cast)
Content warning: Sexual assault
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| Image credit: Courtesy of TIFF |
Canadian film I Like Movies, which made its premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, follows Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen), a teenager who, you guessed it, likes movies. In fact, his love of film is pretty much his entire personality. He’s a nerd about films and has almost encyclopedic knowledge about the movies he considers ‘art’, which he shares with his best friend Matt Macarchuk (Percy Hynes White).
Lawrence has
dreams of studying film at NYU, but much to his horror, he realises he needs
this thing called money to get there, so he tries to earn some. Along the way, Lawrence
meets new people, he learns some life lessons (I think), and begins to understand
that being passionate about something isn’t always enough.
A lot of
people will love I Like Movies because it’s about a single-minded nerd
who loves an art form that almost everyone watching the film loves as well. But
the problem is that we have seen Lawrence or characters like Lawrence in films
thousands of times before. The narcissistic, egotistical passionate young man
who treads on everyone closest to him is a character that’s been done to death.
The world has always told stories about men who dream and the supposed
obstacles they face in the way of achieving those dreams. Why did we need
another story like that?
But then
again, I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised—writer-director Chandler Levack is
a self-proclaimed ‘huge Cameron Crowe fan’ and that shows in I Like Movies.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a Crowe fan or making a film that
could possibly fit in his universe (if such a thing existed), but the Cameron
Crowes of this world already centre young white men who are supposedly
misunderstood in their films; what we need is filmmakers creating stories about
other people like that.
Lawrence
is insufferable and self-centred. He’s so cruel to his mother who has to
balance an underwhelming job with being a single mother to an emotionally
erratic teenager. His best friend Matt is a passenger in their friendship. Lawrence
gatekeeps filmmaking from the one Black girl in his school who is interested in
film. He thinks his life is so difficult, till he hears about his manager’s experience
in Hollywood—but instead of consoling her, Lawrence can’t see beyond his own
youthful infatuation with an older woman. Lawrence is one of those people who
thinks his passion will make things happen, so he puts no effort into doing
anything to achieve his own dreams. He’s also entitled and hates being told
what to do. It’s genuinely difficult to like or care about Lawrence because a)
we’ve seen it all before, and b) he has no idea how much life can actually suck
for someone who isn’t a cisgendered white boy.
But what
makes Lawrence such an annoying character to watch is Isaiah Lehtinen’s
pitch-perfect performance. He is brilliant, arresting, and a complete scene-stealer.
Not only can Lehtinen elicit laughs when needed, but you also feel the
character’s pain because he doesn’t have the ability to process his emotions. Lehtinen
is one to watch.
Romina
D'Ugo could have easily fallen into the MPDG trope, but she gives Alana so much
personality with her understated take on the character. Similarly, Krista
Bridges carries herself as a resigned and shattered character credibly. Percy
Hynes White has a curtailed role, but he is believable as Matt. I thought he
was particularly good in the first few minutes of the film.
I Like
Movies is set in Burlington, Ontario, but I didn’t
realise what the location was until the very end of the film when it was specifically mentioned. I’ve never been to Burlington, nor do I know what it
was like there in the early noughties, but nothing about this particular location
stood out to me. I honestly thought it was somewhere outside Toronto since it
looks pretty similar.
There are also
several moments in the film that either doesn’t fit or felt contrived. There’s a
scene where a character tells another about a traumatic experience, and I wondered
throughout how appropriate it was for these revelations to be dumped on an
underaged character. Later in the film, everything goes wrong all at once for
the protagonist but the aftermath is still played for laughs. Some of the
reactions to events are, thus, less believable, because they all happen at
once. I also think that the film tries to ‘tell’ Lawrence—and the audience that
identifies with him—about the struggles other communities face, but it doesn’t
flow naturally in the script. In the end, what does Lawrence learn? It’s
exactly one thing said to him just before the final scenes of the film. Did
anything that was said before actually make an impact on him?
I Like
Movies is well-made, with an engaging cast,
excellent performances, and an affecting story. But it follows the wrong protagonist.
There are stories that need to be told, but Lawrence’s isn’t it. Every other
character would have brought a more unique and under-told perspective to the
film. I wish we had seen those stories instead.
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