Don’t Date a Musician Unless it’s Devon Bostick: 10 Things I Didn’t Hate While Watching Mile End Kicks (2025)

This zine is famously called Almost Famous Zine after the 2000 movie by the same name. It is about a music journalist, and among other things, love and coming-of-age. Since the early 2000s we haven’t seen journalism girlies repped since possibly the last true beacon, Ugly Betty (2006-2010).

Enter Mile End Kicks, directed by Chandler Levack who became a music journalist because of Almost Famous (2000) and wanted to live in the movie. 

Mile End Kicks is set in 2011—1 year after Ugly Betty ended. Barbie Ferreira’s Grace Pine is 22, a young music critic who pitches a book about Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill for the 33 ⅓ book series. She gradually ends up doing everything other than that, and leaps headfirst into the indie rock lifestyle, stuck in a loose love triangle with members of a band, Bone Patrol. One is guitarist Archie, played by Devon Bostick, and one is lead singer Chevy, played by Stanley Simons. 

From hereon, I would like to excuse myself from the Canada accuracy discourse because I am not Canadian and I don’t speak French (it was my second language as a child, but my mum made me focus on English). 

Here is 10 things I didn’t hate while watching Mile End Kicks:

1. Devon Bostick—I am centring a man, but this is an exception, not the rule. Rodrick Heffley lives on. Bone Patrol is no Loaded Diper, but Devon is the common denominator. While he should have been in the movie more consistently, every appearance makes you remember why musicians are charismatic in the first place. Yes you do question it when the egotistical Chevy is on-screen, but then the charming and un-douche-like Archie undoes this. The lesson I have learned is don’t date a musician unless it’s Devon Bostick.
2. Barbie Ferreira—Such a charismatic actor who nails the comedic beats and makes us invested in her character, even when Grace makes questionable decisions. It was too easy to be frustrated by her decision-making, but the film and Barbie don’t encourage us to judge her. A coming-of-age story is incomplete without the protagonist losing their focus and finding their way back.
3. The writer-director knows what it’s like to be a critic and reviewer. The shot of Grace taking notes in a darkened pub and getting asked what she is doing is so accurate. So is the excitement Grace has to receive an advanced copy of a CD, when she realises she is using overly ‘flowery’ language and struggles to write, and when she goes on a random tangent when writing about Alanis Morissette. There is procrastination galore as well. 

4. The inclusion of a poetry slam reading. 

5. The indie pop rock soundtrack—it includes Avril Lavigne, The Warning, The Haunt and Poppy. This is basically my listening taste if I had to curate it. Women do make better music.

6. The highs and lows of renting a room. Yes it’s more lows than highs, but at least Grace met a supportive friend in Madeleine who was there to bring her back down-to-earth when needed.

7. Stanley Simons—he portrayed Chevy to perfection. No need to elaborate more on Chevy, a.k.a. the “worst guy in Montreal.”

8. Not shying away from depicting creepy, predatory authority figures in the music industry and the world of music criticism—It’s not just artists, it’s those raising them up as well. They platform the predators, and are likely doing worse behind the scenes, especially in male-dominated fields.

9. Second-guessing whether you should question your employer about a missing invoice when it is overdue. Money is the part no one likes to bring up but it has to be. 

10. “Do you think that girls who date guys in bands just want to be the guy in a band?” This made me ponder so much about the proximity to art and artists versus being the one making the art. It also made me want to unpack the gender norms and often, internalised misogyny about who gets to be the artist and who is the muse. I could go on.

Thank you Chandler Levack for birthing this film. Thank you Almost Famous, the movie, for birthing Levack’s interest in music journalism and inspiring the name for the zine I am writing in. It’s really all full circle.  

Here’s to more media about writing about media. 

Article by Valerie Chidiac. If reposting, please credit @val_chidiac and @almostfamouszine.