By Emily R. Zarevich, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Do you like movies? Do you like movies a lot? Do you live in Burlington or in the surrounding area? Do you want to see your local landmarks on film for a change instead of Toronto masquerading as New York City? Then this film was made for you, specifically. Behold, if you haven’t already watched it, the appropriately titled I Like Movies.
Directed and written by Canadian filmmaker Chandler Levack, who also produced it with Lindsay Blair Goeldner and Evan Dubinsky, this slice-of-life comedy-drama officially turns two years old today, an important anniversary for Canadian — and Burlingtonian — filmmaking. It first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 9, 2022. Mongrel Media released it in theatres on March 10, 2023.
The film, which takes place in the year 2003, opens with an outrageously cheesy home video made by two Burlington high schoolers clearly striving to be YouTubers before YouTube even surfaced. Their amateur venture into indie comedy is called Reject’s Night, which, by the way, was the original name of the real-life movie. The miniature film-within-the-film documents the two best friends’ weekend ritual of watching Saturday Night Live, gorging on snack food, and generally avoiding socializing with their peers. They bounce around in sleeping bags. They parody A Christmas Carol.
They’ve put this bizarre project together for school, and it wasn’t even the assignment. When their unimpressed teacher calls them out on this, Lawrence (played by Isaiah Lehtinen) arrogantly argues back. He also, while he’s at it, insults and dismisses a classmate who genuinely compliments his work. Thus, his character is immediately and solidly established within the first few scenes: he is both a hardcore cinephile and a colossal, insensitive jerk.
The rest of the movie follows Lawrence’s spectacular ways of causing even more upset in his relationships, his part-time job at a video rental store (a parody of Blockbuster called Sequels), his future prospects for attending university, and his chances of having anything close to a genuinely thriving career in the filmmaking industry. But despite all his many unlikeable qualities, he is far from a one-dimensional anti-hero. I Like Movies is an exploration of how obsession and the struggle to establish identity and achieve self-growth in one’s most vulnerable years are directly linked to trauma. Part of the transition from adolescence into adulthood is learning to address one’s troubled past rather than suppressing it with unhealthy coping mechanisms, like being rude to loved ones, stroking one’s own ego, and forfeiting sleep to binge-watch movies. Lawrence has to mature and change himself before he can really experience real change in his life.
The film’s target audience is anywhere between Lawrence’s own age group and the older adults who have already emerged from Lawrence’s very own arc. Young viewers will probably dislike Lawrence, as his own classmates and coworkers do, but they will also relate to him and his conflicts. I Like Movies, at its core, touches upon a question that concerns a vast majority of the young people of Burlington, especially in our present era and economy: “Do I need to leave Burlington to find success, or can I find success here?”
The film leans towards the former, while also allowing an open conversation for the latter. In an age where older youth of Burlington may feel considerable pressure to relocate to a major city such as Toronto, Ottawa, or Montreal for better opportunities, this film speaks directly to their concerns and anxieties. The teenaged Lawrence is painted as creatively stifled and restless in the chosen setting of Burlington. His ultimate goal is to leave Canada altogether and attend NYU (New York University) to obtain the same credentials as the great film directors he admires. His best friend Matt (played by Percy Hynes White of Wednesday fame) wants to leave Burlington too. Lawrence’s mother Terri (played by Krista Bridges) and his boss and mentor Alana (played by Romina D’Ugo) are both adults living in Burlington with established jobs, and both have their own advice to offer Lawrence who, despite his confidence in his grand future as a filmmaker, has a reluctant need for guidance.
The theme of economic and/or social migration in I Like Movies is especially relevant nowadays. Unfortunately, Ontario, in general, is currently experiencing a drainage of young people, who are not only fleeing to seek out career advancement elsewhere but also basic affordability. The site blogTO recently did a piece on this phenomenon. “While the mass exodus among young adults first began in the difficult times of early 2020, it looks like the movement is picking up speed once again, as approximately 14,000 people in their 20s left Ontario for other provinces in 2023,” writes journalist Kimia Afshar Mehrabi. It makes one wonder, if I Like Movies was set in today’s economic climate, would Lawrence’s aim be to flee to New York City — which is hardly affordable for cash-strapped students anymore — or to Alberta? Regardless of his destination, at no point in the film does Lawrence consider not uprooting himself from Burlington’s soil.
Chandler Levack herself is a Burlington native and a former attendee of Aldershot High School. Cara Nickerson, writing for CBC, wrote an article investigating Levack’s own background as the basis for the film’s conception and the dilemmas Levack faced as a teenager with a strong ambitious streak. I Like Movies, as it turns out, is a truly autobiographical coming-of-age story. Levack worked at a Blockbuster store and fantasized about leaving Burlington to pursue a life in the cinematic world. Both she and her self-insert protagonist represent a former generation of young people who saw possibilities in a time period that was becoming increasingly technological and accessible to active, innovative minds. Flying from Burlington’s nest is, for Lawrence, a major plot point, and yet the film still respects Burlington as a safe launch pad for a young person starting out.
All Burlington-based and trained eyes will easily recognize the main characters’ high school as Aldershot. If you live in any of the film’s production locations, you can make a game out of pausing the movie with a friend to identify where each scene takes place. I Like Movies Frankensteins an early 2000s Burlington out of a patchwork of filming locations in the Greater Toronto Area. If you’re wondering, for example, where the fictional store Sequels is, it’s in Owen Sound, Ontario, at an abandoned Blockbuster store. It was temporarily brought back to life and restocked with DVDs to honour a bygone era of media consumption.
So where can you find and watch I Like Movies now, if you’re curious about this film? The best place to go if you really likes movies: Netflix.
