REEL FUTURES
Chandler Levack Realizes a (Sometimes Embarrassing) Dream with I Like Movies
MOVIES LIKE TO TELL US THAT HIGH SCHOOL IS ONE OF THE BEST times of a person’s life — but, more often than not, the reality is tougher than that. But what if we were to discover the charm of those difficult moments and transform them into work that has the power to resonate with others? Chandler Levack, Toronto-based writer and director, does exactly that with her witty, nostalgic and genuinely heartfelt feature film debut, I Like Movies.
Set in early-2000s Burlington, ON, where Levack grew up, I Like Movies is indeed inspired by her time working at Blockbuster during her senior year and, she notes, “the growing pains, in terms of close friendships falling apart and not really knowing who I was. But also, basing my identity on this love of movies.”
Brilliantly portrayed through a female lens, protagonist Lawrence (Isaiah Lehtinen) is an obnoxious yet vulnerable 17-year-old cinephile who gets a job at the local video store to save money for his dream of going to NYU and becoming a famous director. To Lawrence, nobody makes it big as a Canadian filmmaker — a joke in itself, and just a taste of his massive ego.
Levack shares that I Like Movies is an exercise in her past high school self conversing with her present adult self, and understanding her closeness to each of them. “You have this 17-year-old boy, but then you also have this woman in her mid-30s,” she explains. “It’s these two versions of myself encountering each other with love and affection, but also violence, resentment and collective trauma.”
It’s her hope that “movies and portraits like this — as cringe as this film is on so many levels — will maybe make us all feel more empathy to our high school selves; help us acknowledge what terrors we were in high school and be relieved and grateful that we have changed.”
She continues, “I would [tell my high school self that] … this thing that you love and care about and hold so dearly with you? You’re going to make [it] your own movie one day.”