I Like Movies

Monday, March 20 until Wednesday, March 22, 2023Yukon Theatre

Dubbed Ladybird for incels at TIFF. Loosely based on her own coming of age in suburban Toronto, director Chandler Levack swaps the gender of the lead character and it proves out a fascinating and hilarious movie. Socially inept 17-year old cinephile, Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen), who gets a job at a video store where he forms a complicated friendship with his older female manager.

We're going back to 2002, a year when video rental was a big thing. Lawrence and Matt are film lovers who dream of becoming great filmmakers. They spend all their time watching SNL and movies. Lawrence gets a job at the local video shop, where he becomes good friends with his boss, the grown-up and attractive Zita. At the same time, he loses contact with Matt, and his mother says that they cannot afford to send him to New York, where he wants to study film, so he has to settle for an ordinary university in Canada. Is his filmmaking dream crushed before it even gets going?

Content advisory:

Themes of suicide, sexual abuse and mental distress. Recommended ages 13+

Winner of Panavision Spirit Award for Independent Cinema, Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

A film that is small but not slight, sweet but not cloying, and the kind of thing that can make even a cynical critic like movies again. - Katie Rife indieWire