Formerly Known As Cinema

Barbie Ferreira has described her latest film, “Mile End Kicks,” as "indie sleaze," a label that proves surprisingly useful in explaining what makes this take on the "bad girl" archetype feel so fresh.

We've seen unapologetically sexual women onscreen before: characters who make the first move, juggle lovers without apology, seem impervious to rejection, and carry themselves with a confidence that keeps the rest of the world at a comfortable distance.

Ferreira's character, the ironically named Grace, is something messier. She's fiercely independent yet desperately needy, artistically ambitious yet creatively paralyzed. She projects confidence but struggles to follow through.

The result is one of the few recent films willing to let a young woman be magnetic, selfish, vulnerable, and exasperating all at once, without trying to redeem or condemn her.

Yes, she's annoying. More than once I wanted to reach through the screen and shake her. But that reaction says as much about me as it does about Grace. I recognized the same streak of self-sabotage that has periodically derailed my own life, and it's that painfully human flaw, rather than her sexuality or recklessness, that gives the film its emotional sting.

Photo Courtesy of Sumerian Pictures

Set during the summer of 2011, Grace writes about music, sex, and youth culture for the fictitious Toronto journal Merge Weekly, cultivating the voice of someone who's already lived the life she's describing.

She hasn't.

When she lands a job writing one of the acclaimed "33 1/3” books — the series exploring a single influential album through criticism and personal experience — she pockets the advance and heads from Toronto to Montreal, hoping to reinvent herself for the summer.

Before leaving, Grace writes a short list of things she wants to accomplish. One item: "Have actual sex."

It's a strange thing to write, given that a later flashback reveals an ongoing affair with her married boss, until we realize, through Grace's behavior in Montreal, that "actual sex" means sex she initiates, on her own terms.

It's the film's central irony: Grace possesses the vocabulary of experience long before she possesses the experience itself.

In Montreal, she throws herself into the local music scene, writing a review of a local band’s EP and getting hired as their publicist.

She's also determined to cross the ‘sex’ item off her summer list, pursuing both the band’s sweet-natured guitarist Archie (Devon Bostick) and its hopelessly self-absorbed lead singer, Chevy (Stanley Simons).

It's through these frank, humiliating encounters — filmed as a series of unsatisfying exercises in bad sex — that the film earns its "indie sleaze" reputation.

Ferreira, no stranger to explicit material after two seasons of “Euphoria,” is remarkably vulnerable here, conveying Grace's hopefulness and disappointment with bruising clarity. She muddles through each hookup with her pride damaged but intact. She just wants the experience; her feelings are almost an afterthought.

Photo Courtesy of Sumerian Pictures

Writer-director Chandler Levack, who spent years covering music for outlets like Toronto Life and SPIN before turning to filmmaking, nails the peculiar energy of the DIY scene with the ease of someone who's lived it.

The songs, written by Montreal band TOPS, sound real enough for any 90s slacker-rock playlist.

But it's the emotional truth of Grace's creative life, more than the music-scene texture, that ultimately connects us to Levack's world.

Grace has flashes of brilliance, but a deep-rooted habit of procrastination undoes her. Starting a project is exhilarating; finishing one is lonely, frustrating work, and she keeps abandoning the task at hand for whatever shiny object catches her eye.

It's the kind of painful lesson most creative people learn the hard way. When I was younger, I believed that living an interesting life was a substitute for doing the work. It took me a long time to learn they aren't the same thing — which may be why Grace's particular flavor of self-sabotage stuck with me long after the credits rolled.

In one of the film's darkest moments, penniless and on the verge of homelessness, Grace sits on the kitchen floor in front of an open refrigerator, gnawing helplessly on a stolen baguette.

It's funny, sad, and faintly painful to watch. Ferreira never flinches from Grace's humiliation, fully inhabiting someone who's painted herself into a corner and no longer knows how to get out.

Levack understands that growing up isn't about accumulating experiences. It's about finally learning from them. Grace resists that lesson as stubbornly as I once did.

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