Fact-based journalism that sparks the Canadian conversation

Articles Business Environment Health Politics Arts & Culture Society

Special Series Hope You’re Well For the Love of the Game Living Rooms In Other Worlds: A Space Exploration Terra Cognita More special series >

For the Love of the Game

In Other Worlds: A Space Exploration

More special series >

Events The Walrus Talks The Walrus Video Room The Walrus Leadership Roundtables The Walrus Leadership Forums Article Club

The Walrus Video Room

The Walrus Leadership Roundtables

The Walrus Leadership Forums

Subscribe Renew your subscription Change your address Magazine Issues Newsletters Podcasts

Renew your subscription

The Walrus Lab Hire The Walrus Lab Amazon First Novel Award

Amazon First Novel Award

Mile End Kicks: The Strange Sensation of Seeing Myself in the Buzzy Montreal Movie

Indie bands, loft parties, walking home with sweet, unavailable boys—yup, I’ve been there too

I’m hanging at the back of the venue, not sure who to talk to. My hair is thick with wax, and my hands are stuffed in the pockets of my vintage Ralph Lauren bomber jacket, which I bought in my last year of high school. The band is good—four dudes playing loose, sardonic indie rock; the front man has a presence both enticing and repelling. It’s the kind of room I’ve been in a million times over my ten years in Montreal, and I, once again, feel a mixture of belonging and artifice, like I’m playing a part.

Decode the stories behind the headlines with The Walrus newsletter. Sign up for The Walrus newsletter and get trusted Canadian journalism straight in your inbox.

Only here, that feeling is not entirely a product of my psyche. We are, in fact, on a film set, and I am simply doing my job as a “background performer” (a fancy term for extra). Dozens of apparent twenty-somethings—mostly younger than me—crowd in front of me, outfitted in V-neck tees and skinny jeans, cheering on the fake band as we shoot a scene for the movie Mile End Kicks.

Now in theatres, Mile End Kicks takes place in the Montreal music scene of 2011—the year before I purchased my vintage jacket and decided, like the movie’s protagonist, to live in Montreal. Loosely based on director Chandler Levack’s own experiences, the film follows bespectacled brunette and emerging rock critic Grace (Barbie Ferreira) as she dates boys in bands and tries to write a book about Alanis Morissette. Grace’s........

© The Walrus