‘How do you get people to like you?’
Music obsessives are often depicted as being loners, yes, but also cool, mysterious loners. Film geeks, however, do not receive this treatment. They are almost always male, probably overweight, socially awkward… In my experience, both flavours of obsessive are two sides of the same coin. A geek is a geek, folks. I should know. I am one…
I Like Movies presents us with Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen) – an archetypal film nerd and troubled teenager who hides his narcissism and insecurities behind a deep-seated but often performative love of cinema. Things initially turn around for Lawrence when he bags a job in the local video store and forms an unlikely friendship with the much older manager, Alana (Romina D’Ugo), but his penchant for self-sabotage eventually rears its ugly head.
Written and directed by first-time Canadian director Chandler Levack, I Like Movies is both a love letter to cinema fandom and a warning not to let yourself get too carried away by what is essentially entertainment (although I write that through gritted teeth). As someone who has devoted much of my life to pop culture, not just consuming it but also dissecting it, trying to understand it, and ultimately writing about it, I found the depiction of Lawrence here to be warm without being overly sentimental, and funny without being reductive. I also found his character to be uncomfortably close to home. It helps that Lehtinen, an actor I’d never heard of before watching this film, is utterly convincing.
I Like Movies is a personal and heartfelt comedy that recalls stuff like Pen15 and Eighth Grade in its ability to combine big laughs with big feelings – an underseen gem.
