Mile End Kicks

In 2011, Grace Pine is a 22-year-old music critic for the alt-weekly magazine Merge Weekly in Toronto. One summer, she moves to Montreal to write a 33 ⅓ book about Alanis Morissette's album Jagged Little Pill. She rents an apartment in Montreal's Mile End neighbourhood she found on Craigslist with roommate Madeleine, a local DJ whose boyfriend Hugo Côté is the drummer for the up-and-coming four-piece indie rock band Bone Patrol. After pitching her book to New York City editor Phoebe Reilly via Skype, Grace lands a publishing deal and receives a $500 advance.

On Grace's first night in Montreal, Madeleine invites her to a loft party where she is DJing. There, Grace meets Archie Webber, the sensitive and winsome guitarist for Bone Patrol, and smokes marijuana with him. Watching a performance by Bone Patrol at the party, Grace becomes instantly attracted to Chevy Olsen, the pretentious, self-absorbed lead singer. Although Madeleine describes Chevy as "the worst guy in Montreal", Grace approaches him after the concert, and they have a brief and awkward conversation.

Grace leaves the party at dawn with Archie and they bond on the way home, only to find that they are next-door neighbours. Grace invites Archie to have sex with her in her apartment, but he reveals he is celibate for personal reasons. Later, Grace visits the nearby Mile End Kicks shoe store, where Chevy works a day job. When Chevy mentions that Bone Patrol's debut EP will be released soon, Grace offers to be the band's publicist, and he agrees.

After finding that she has no money in her bank account, Grace emails Jeff, her former editor at Merge, about the $4,000 he owes her. A flashback reveals that she had been having an affair with Jeff, who is married. Putting her Alanis book aside, Grace writes a review of Bone Patrol's debut EP for the Montreal Mirror. Later, Grace tries to initiate sex with Chevy in her apartment, but after they briefly make out, he suggests that they keep their relationship strictly professional.

Jeff replies to Grace's email saying that her invoice has already been processed. That evening, Grace and Archie attend a loft party where she intends to read an excerpt from her Alanis book as part of a poetry reading. While talking privately to Archie at the party, Chevy describes Grace as a "cum dumpster". When it is Grace's turn at the reading, Archie encourages her to read, but she instead leaves with Chevy. As Grace and Chevy are having sex at his house, he abruptly stops, saying he cannot achieve an erection for her.

Returning home that night, Grace listens to a voicemail from Phoebe informing her that her contract has been terminated due to her lack of communication. As Grace breaks down in tears, Madeleine accuses her of being selfish and reminds her that she owes her two months of rent. The next day, Archie tells Grace that he is celibate because he has oral herpes, which he contracted from a girl he had hooked up with. He also confesses his feelings for Grace, but when she mentions that she has been seeing Chevy, Archie blurts out that Chevy called her a "cum dumpster" at the poetry reading.

Defeated, Grace moves back home to Toronto. At the Merge office, she confronts Jeff over his poor treatment of her and demands her $4,000 check. She then returns to Montreal for Bone Patrol's EP launch, where she pays Madeleine for the rent she owed and they make amends. Chevy attempts to make a romantic gesture to Grace before awkwardly kissing her, but she rebuffs him, telling him to "fuck off". At a subsequent poetry reading, Grace reads a piece about her own experiences as a female music critic in male-dominated environments.

Before returning home to Toronto, Grace spends the day with Archie driving around in the Bone Patrol van. The two eventually kiss and prepare to have sex while in the van.

The film's original screenplay outline, submitted under the working title Anglophone, was announced in 2016 as the winner of a competition for emerging women screenwriters staged by Zapruder Films, the production company of Matthew Miller.^[6] The prize was $12,000 and the services of a professional story editor to help develop and complete the full screenplay.

Most of the cast was announced in August 2024,^[5] with Baruchel's casting announced toward the end of production.^[7] The film was shot in August and September 2024 in Montreal.^[8]

Levack has said the production budget of the film was approximately $4 million, a significant increase from her previous feature I Like Movies, which cost about $130,000.^[2]

The Montreal indie rock band Tops wrote two original songs for the soundtrack.^[7]

Mile End Kicks had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 4, 2025.^[9][10] The film was also screened in the Borsos Competition program of the 2025 Whistler Film Festival.^[11] It was screened at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival on February 28 and March 1, 2026.^[12] The film was released theatrically on April 17, 2026, in Canada by Elevation Pictures (with Entract Films releasing in Quebec) and in the United States by Sumerian Pictures.^[13][14][15]