#TIFF22: “I LIKE MOVIES”

By David Baldwin

High school senior Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen) likes movies. Scratch that, he is obsessed with movies. He watches them endlessly, riffing on his love for Stanley Kubrick to anyone who will listen. He is ambitious and just knows he is going to get into NYU’s film program where he will be taught by the likes of Todd Solondz. But this is the early 2000s – or more specifically, early 2000s era Burlington, Ontario – and Lawrence needs $90,000 to attend. So he gets a job at the local video store Sequels and quickly discovers that the movies are far different than reality.

After reading the Film’s description, I knew I was going to love I LIKE MOVIES. I just did not know just how much I would love I LIKE MOVIES. Writer/Director Chandler Levack hones in on an era of innocence and social naivety that feels so foreign in the modern day, yet rings true for someone like me whose life long obsession with film kicked off around the same time the film takes place. While I hope I was less of a pretentious asshole than Lawrence is, Lehtinen portrays the budding Cinephile brilliantly. Just thinking about him going off on why he cannot in good faith promote the new edition of Shrek on DVD is making me chuckle, as is a recurring joke around him needing to return an overdue VHS copy of Wild Things. No doubt it is this side of his personality that is going to speak to an entire generation of older Millennials.

All of that said, the Film is substantially darker than I thought it would be and does a great job of humanizing Lawrence in a way that setting the Film in the age of Social Media would have felt disingenuous. There is some genuine tragedy on display here, and watching Lehtinen weave through the tonal pivots like a seasoned professional is a truly beautiful experience. The Supporting Cast is great too, especially Romina D’Ugo as Sequels’ manager Alana. The Film does a terrific job juxtaposing her reality to Lawrence’s fantasy, and her mid-film monologue is dynamite.

While I can overlook some anachronisms (such as the updated Cineplex seating) more so than others (Tanner Zipchen as a hot customer is not a sentence I thought I would ever be writing), I think this is a fantastic directorial debut from Levack and is easily one of my favourite films of the Festival already.

Oh and shooting/framing the film in 4:3? Well played, Ms. Levack. Well played.

I LIKE MOVIES screens as follows at TIFF ’22 as follows:

Fri, Sept 9 IN-PERSON Scotiabank Theatre 6:15pm

Wed, Sept 14 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 6:30pm

Fri, Sept 16 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 9:45pm