“I like movies” is not just something I tell people at parties, it’s also the title of Chandler Levack’s debut feature film. If you’re someone who reads pieces like this review, this is a film with something to say about you.
L-R: Isaiah Lehtinen and Percy Hynes White in Chandler Levack’s dramedy I LIKE MOVIES. Photo courtesy of Monument Releasing.
I Like Movies (2022), finally rolling out in the USA, stars Isaiah Lehtinen (Mystery 101: Dead Talk; If There Be Thorns) as Lawerence, a high school senior who dreams of becoming a filmmaker. He lives in a small Canadian town with his single mother ((Krista Bridges (Dream Scenario; House at the End of the Street)), and deals with emotional irregularity issues. It’s 2002 and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love is new in theaters. Shrek (2002) has a new widescreen edition releasing in video stores. NYU is the hippest film school in the world, and Lawrence and his best friend Matt Macarchuck (Percy Hynes White (Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; My Old Ass)) watch Jimmy Fallon (The Tonight Show) on SNL (spoiler: they think he stinks). It’s a moment in time that many of us know, just like Lawrence is an artist we all know.
“How do you stand him?”
Lawrence is self-obsessed, a pretentious* hater, and a loud asshole. He shits on the world, his classmates, his mother, his only friend, everyone but himself and his dead father. Even movies that he considers passe are beneath him, an attitude that causes problems when he takes a part-time job at Sequels, the local video store. Self-sabotaging arrogance might as well be a prerequisite for applying to NYU film school, and we’ve all met someone with that kind of talent but no reliability and unrealistic expectations for the world to accommodate them. The person that skates by with a clever charm that tricks you and guilts you into giving them a chance. In short, the kid in class you know will never make it in the movie business, at least, as they are now. The film begins with a swell short film he made with Matt, and it fills me with gratitude and regret in equal parts that I didn’t make more cheesy films with my friends in high school. Lawrence immediately undercuts himself and the film after it’s initially well-received by the classroom by picking a verbal fight with his teacher and then his peers.
*In general I don’t believe in pretention. It’s a word made and tossed around by insecure sell-outs who feel threatened when encountering someone with more curiosity and imagination than them. However, Lawrence is in fact, obnoxiously pretentious.
In this coming-of-age drama, we see Lawrence encounter reality in a way that he hasn’t before, in the form of Alana, a 20-something manager of Sequels whose own neurosis will mix into a combustible solution to both of their cases of arrested development.
Alana is played by Romina D’ugo, who’s been around awhile as a dancer and actor in projects like Hairspray (2007) and Degrassi Goes Hollywood (2009). If you’ve seen her, you’ll be shocked she had this in her, not because she was bad before, but because she’s never been given a part that showcases her now apparent deep pathos and charisma. She should instantly shoot to the top of independent producers’ casting lists for dramas off of this performance as a wounded 20-something who gets a little too invested in impressing the high schooler who works for her. She, too, has a character-defining relationship with movies that stands between her and independent adulthood.
The film is not all drama, it is fact, quite hilarious. There’s a great running bit about Wild Things (1998) and Andy McQueen (Fahrenheit 451; Mrs.Davis) is very funny and charming as one of Lawrence’s co-workers. However, many of the jokes come from Lawrence’s social ineptitude, and cringe humor doesn’t go as far with me as it does with most people.
If there’s a scene from another film that I Like Movies reminds me of, it’s Jean Smart’s (Hacks) monologue about ghosts to Brad Pitt (Moneyball) in Babylon (2022):
“No one asks to be left behind. But in a hundred years, when you and I are both long gone, anytime someone threads a frame of yours through a sprocket, you will be alive again… A child born in 50 years, will stumble across your image flickering on the screen, and feel he knows you like a friend, though you breathed your last before he breathed his first.”
The flicker of the projector lamp draws us to the silver screen like flies, but when the curtain closes, most of us are left on the other side, confused, hurt, and yearning for capability or support that we will never receive. For every ghost that shines, there are a thousand explorers who never made it to the fountain of youth, and thousands more who never make it out of the suburbs because of the circumstances that chain their ankles to cul-de-sacs and strip malls. This is not a film about the magic of cinema or the artistic heroism of those who sculpt it. This is a film about the moldy smell that accompanies that age-old Q&A adage “Just pick up a camera. You’ve got one in your pocket.” For some, the camera really is too heavy, and because we ignore that, no one’s ever there to help these frustrated artists lift it a little higher.
Andy McQueen, Alex Ateah, Romina D’Ugo, and Isaiah Lehtinen in Chandler Levack’s dramedy I LIKE MOVIES. Photo courtesy of Monument Releasing.
The truth is, you don’t have to go to NYU film school to become a great filmmaker. You can make your own peers through working, but providing a peer group that keeps each other employed throughout your career remains the true advantage of prestigious film schools. Everywhere you go in America, there are pockets of talent, cinephiles, critics, and filmmakers, scraping by and doing the work, who may never rise to the level their talent begs of them, because they only know each other. Now, art is art for art’s sake, and many will find satisfying lives and careers working as videographers or technicians or editors, watching Blu-rays at friends’ houses, and attending the local art house while saving for a mini-van. However, Lawrence is not one of those people, even if he’s probably destined for that existence. He’s lost so much in his personal life, he feels that the world owes him a win, owes him the career he wants. It doesn’t, even if we all deserve a hand up. And maybe, reading this, you want that, too.
As a critic, Lawrence compels me and grates on me, not just because he reminds me of some very annoying people I’ve been more than happy to leave behind in my university years, but because he is a magnified reflection of the flaws in myself I worry that others can see. The fear that your sudden disinterest in a conversation that’s moved away from film shows in your eyes, the sacrifice of time and social life to engage with the art form, the way it takes over your schedule and, therefore, your lifestyle. As someone often described by friends as “someone who thinks mostly about movies,” it’s easy to worry that not only does your relationship with film define you to others, but to yourself as well.
Isaiah Lehtinen in Chandler Levack’s dramedy I LIKE MOVIES. Photo courtesy of Monument Releasing.
That’s the heart of I Like Movies, the line between a love for and obsession with cinema, and learning how to be a real, functional person. Maybe you can’t relate to Lawrence’s obsession with movies (why and how are you reading this), but learning how to grow up is universal, and it’s portrayed excellently in this film. It’s one of the first great independent films of 2024, and should be essential viewing for anyone who logs more than 30 movies on Letterboxd a year. It’s slowly rolling out on a USA tour, starting with a sold-out showing at Nitehawk Cinema on April 8th. The following showing on April 9th at Roxy Cinema includes a Q&A with director Chandler Levack and Griffin Newman (The Tick; Black Check with Griffin and David) before heading out to LA and theaters across the country. If you have a chance to see it and you don’t go, you’re not a real cinephile.
In select New York City and Los Angeles theaters beginning April 8th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Monument Releasing I Like Movies webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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