'Mile End Kicks' Movie Ending Explained & Summary: Who Did Grace Choose To Be With?

Mile End Kicks is a 2026 Canadian romantic comedy film by music critic and filmmaker Chandler Levack, partly based on her own experiences from her young adulthood. The film is centered around Grace Pine, a 22-year-old woman who moves to Montreal from her native Toronto, in the hopes of becoming a music critic and writing a book on her favorite artist, Alanis Morissette’s latest album. While Mile End Kicks is, at its heart, a late-coming-of-age film about a woman learning about life, I just could not get over the awkward characters and their even more awkward interactions, as well as the music, which rhymes ‘Korean Supermarket’ with ‘red carpet’ at its height.

Spoiler Alert

What is the film about?

Mile End Kicks begins in 2011, at a local concert somewhere in Toronto, where Grace Pine enjoys time by herself while also at work, as she proudly states within just a few minutes that she is a music critic. As Grace submits her latest article to be published by the alt-weekly magazine, “Merge Weekly,” where she currently works, she is appreciated by her boss, Jeff Muir, and she soon gets one more album to work on. Despite working the job that she has always dreamt of doing, Grace is not very happy at her current workplace because of the casual sexism that she faces, and also because her boss has been sexually exploiting her for quite some time now. Therefore, she decides to quit her job and move to Montreal, with the ambitious plan of writing a 33 1/3 book about the latest album by her favorite artist, Alanis Morissette.

Since Montreal has a promising music scene and is also considered a much more hospitable city to artists than Toronto, Grace decides to leave home and go live in Quebec, also with the dream of learning French and turning her life and career around. Although her parents, especially her mother, are not very excited by the prospect of their 22-year-old daughter leaving home to go live by herself, Grace takes a bus to Montreal, and quickly makes a checklist of the things she hopes to do post this significant change in her life, which includes becoming a successful music critic, as well as falling in love. She moves in with a woman named Madeleine, whom she had met on Craigslist while specifically looking for a place to stay, and is confident that her new flatmate can be of great help, as she is a DJ.

It is through Madeleine that Grace gets to know about a local band, funnily named Bone Patrol, as the DJ is in a relationship with the drummer of this band, Hugo Cote. Meanwhile, Grace pitches her book idea to an editor in New York City, after Jeff had already put in a good word for her, and it works out in her favor. The editor, Phoebe Reilly, admits that she is impressed by the idea of a book on Alanis’ new album, ‘Jagged Little Pill,’ and so she makes Grace an offer and even pays her a $500 advance for the book. The only condition is that Grace will need to hand in the first draft in just a few weeks’ time, and so she gets to writing her book, while also actively immersing herself in the music scene in Montreal.

How does Grace fit in to her new surroundings?

In her initial days in Montreal, Grace hardly ever leaves her shared apartment, but has to eventually step out to support her flatmate, Madeleine, as the latter invites her to a gig. It is at this underground party that Grace finds herself most out of place, as she does not know what to do or how to interact with the others, who are starkly different from her. While she is a usual young woman with a lot of interest and knowledge in music, she evidently lacks the cool and carefree attitude of the others, who openly take drugs or make love in public. Grace shies away from any interaction, as her social awkwardness kicks in and she keeps typing on her phone by herself, until she meets a young man named Archie. 

She soon learns that Archie is the guitarist for Bone Patrol, meaning he is a bandmate of Hugo, and he seems genuine in supporting Grace and helping her get over the awkwardness. At the end of the party, Grace and Archie walk back home together, and a certain friendly, and even somewhat romantic, bond crops up between them. Both because Archie turns her down as he is practicing celibacy for some personal reason, and also because she is very interested in getting to know the lead vocalist of the band, Chevy, Grace grows close to Bone Patrol and its members.

Once feeling herself to be a stranger in Montreal, Grace eventually starts exploring the city even more, and finds out about an underground poetry and performance group that meet by the railway tracks, finding her space in this group. She becomes friends with performers in the group, and realizes that her writing skills can be used in more ways than one. It is safe to say that Grace ultimately makes Montreal her home, even though she initially had some trouble fitting in.

Why is Grace fired by her publisher?

Grace’s original plan, to write a book on Alanis Morissette’s album, is totally sidetracked after she starts to find a life in Montreal. Her initial goal was to write a 33 1/3, which is a special kind of book in an eponymous series which is entirely about new music albums from various genres. It was for this project that she had been appointed by the editor in NYC, as they were interested in promoting such a unique idea. When Grace first started writing, she faced the issue of her style and content clashing with what the editor, Phoebe, had in mind. According to the editorial feedback on a draft that she had sent, Grace was asked to introduce more of her personal opinions and the emotions the album made her feel, instead of generic information about the artist or the songs. 

This is when Grace seemingly started to fall out of love with the project, as she simply did not have much in the way of personal opinions to add or write on. Her feelings are evident from a scene in which she is about to write a section on what Alanis Morissette and Sylvia Plath have in common, which is something she had originally thought of including in her work. But during the process of writing the book, or maybe at this particular time, she feels that there is nothing much in common between the two figures, and therefore, there is nothing significant enough to fill an entire section with. Gradually, her loss of interest in this project is replaced by her responsibilities as the publicist of the indie rock band Bone Patrol. Since matters of the heart are also involved with the band, Grace clearly takes a lot of interest in her role as their publicist, even though the band is definitely not big enough to require a full-time publicist at the moment. 

Finally, Grace gets too caught up in matters of romance, both in her own life as well as those around her. She gets to know how Madeleine and Hugo’s relationship is in a rocky state, and advises her to break up with him. As Madeleine is unable to bring herself to go through with it, Grace literally types and sends a text message to Hugo on her behalf. This leads to unnecessary drama, as Madeleine seemingly starts to dislike Grace after some time, almost out of a silly feeling that she had caused her breakup. While Madeleine keeps demanding the rent that Grace owes her, this is really the only time that we see her talk about matters of money. Hugo already did not like Grace from the beginning, apparently only because she spoke English and not French, and so he is not too happy with her either. It is to be noted here that despite Hugo’s ‘passionate detestation’ of Anglophiles, he is literally in a band that performs songs only in English and never in French.

Amidst all these confused and somewhat self-obsessed people, Grace also starts to become like them, only being obsessed with matters other than her book, for which she had come to Montreal in the first place. She seems to feel pestered when Phoebe keeps mailing her for updates and changes, and instead remains more invested in the tumultuous romantic life that she is both disappointed with and also quite enjoying at the same time. As a result, Phoebe eventually informs Grace that the deal that the publishers had given her has now been cancelled, meaning that the fat sum of money that had been promised her will obviously no longer be paid. Grace also has to return the $500 paid to her in advance for the book, which lands her in severe financial trouble.

Does Grace get the money owed to her?

Shaken by the failure in her professional life, Grace visits her parents back in Toronto, only to learn that they are getting divorced, which makes her feel even more dejected. Since she is in dire need of money, and her parents clearly cannot give her any as they are preparing to bear the expenses of a divorce, Grace finally decides to pay her old office a visit. Over the span of the past year, she had actively written for Merge Weekly on a daily basis, for which she was supposed to be paid 4,000 dollars. But the money had never been paid to her, and when she wrote an email to her old boss, Jeff, asking for the remuneration to be cleared, he had lied that the amount had already been processed. To make matters worse, her articles had disappeared from the website as well, making it quite evident that the magazine, or rather its editor, had no intentions of paying Grace. 

Jeff had believed that she would simply let the matter be if he lied about the payment already having been processed, and by removing her articles from the website. His perception was based on Grace’s original personality, but he was definitely not prepared for her changed attitude towards life and injustice. Thus, Grace now rolls up at her office, where she not just intentionally triggers the obnoxious men who used to once belittle her only because of their sexism, but she also demands that Jeff pays her the money immediately. She confronts him for having sexually exploited her in the past, and this is enough to scare the meek and cowardly Jeff to give her a check for the 4,000 dollars. Jeff even makes a claim that he felt that Grace used to enjoy their arrangement, despite being self-aware enough to know that no woman would willingly want to be in such a position with a married man like him.

Is Grace’s move to Montreal a total waste?

Because of Grace failing to write the book, and then what seems to be a falling out with her flatmate, Grace’s move to Montreal appears to be a waste to her. However, it is clear by the end of the film that she genuinely learns a lot from her experiences in the new city, and it changes the course of her life as well. Firstly, Grace learns more about herself and what she wants, and while this is definitely not the end to her self-actualization, as she is only 22, the young woman is greatly helped by the humbling experiences. Next, she learns to value herself, which is a much-needed development in her, as she always put others ahead of her in the past. Hopefully, Grace also learns about the importance of money in life, as her disagreements with Madeleine, and the general problems in her life in general, are fixed as soon as she gets hold of the money she was owed at her old job. Plus, there is the obvious advantage of living all by herself in a city after having moved out of her parents’ home for the first time, and all of this put together makes Grace’s move to Montreal a very significant incident in her life.

Does Grace ultimately choose to be with someone?

Finally, Grace had been confused about the developments in her romantic life as well, for she had started to fall for two men at the same time, that too, two bandmates in Bone Patrol. On the one hand, she had become infatuated with the lead singer, Chevy, and even though he initially acted very strange and tried to ignore her, she decided to try her luck with him. Chevy was not only super awkward throughout the time that Grace spent with him, acting erratically almost every time they tried to get intimate, he was also eventually very disrespectful. Chevy had told his friends about how he felt Grace to be a loose woman behind her back, which she ultimately finds out about and dumps him, despite him now showing an interest in her. On the other side, Grace had developed a strong bond with the guitarist, Archie, very naturally, and although there was clearly a romantic spark between them, Archie chose to remain celibate instead of getting together with her. Eventually, he reveals that he made this decision only because he has oral herpes, and therefore did not want to spread the disease to her. 

In Mile End Kicks’ ending, Grace does not care about the oral herpes, or rather, she is convinced by the genuineness of Archie, and ends up getting intimate with him inside his car. Despite Archie asking her to stay in Montreal, Grace has decided to return home to Toronto by this time, meaning that she is not going to be in a relationship with Archie, but at least she chooses to make love to him like she had wanted to from the very beginning.

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