Critic Reviews

Alive to both the soul connection and the bodily itch of these intimate, unwieldy, personally uncharted feelings, Kiyoko’s uncommonly lovely teen movie matches the dizzy, obsessive ecstasy of the song that inspired it.

Beautifully shot and tenderly acted, placing all its faith in pure emotion rather than in overly convoluted twists and turns, this is the sort of gem that feels all the more special for appearing, at first, so ordinary.

Girls Like Girls has a few slow moments, but Kiyoko beautifully captures the looseness of teens hanging out, the vague endlessness of summer when you’re young and the shimmery, shivery feeling of first love.

Kiyoko keeps a light touch, opting to let the characters’ actions speak for themselves. There’s no preaching here, and I was surprised at how well Coley was written. She’s willing and able to stand up for herself, but she is still a vulnerable teen, full of hormones and emotions, and able to be deeply hurt by the callousness of others.

Girls Like Girls is a sweet little gem, particularly in how it represents the decade in a warm, naturalistic manner, allowing details like Lipsmackers, CDs, and elastic chokers to read as genuine instead of forced.

Girls Like Girls announces Kiyoko as a filmmaker of great emotional maturity, one who can speak to young audiences without pandering to the hyperactive style that dominates the other media they consume. It’s a perfect film for Pride.

Kiyoko didn’t come by her fan-given nickname, Lesbian Jesus, for nothing. Like Kiyoko’s videos, the movie wants to create space for romantic deliverance.

For Girls Like Girls the movie, the final result is less a standalone work of great cinema announcing Kiyoko as a feature director, and more an act of dreamy devotion designed to comfort her core fanbase. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it does change who, and perhaps what, this soulful and peculiar film adaptation is for.

As much work as the leads do to breathe life into Coley and Sonya, the story remains a bit vague. Screenwriters Kiyoko and Stefanie Scott gesture towards the girls’ backstories and motivations, but it feels like surface-level character-building instead of deeper insight.

While there’s something admirable about Girls Like Girls and its refusal to tidy up the mess of queer adolescence (the film will no doubt be an instant classic for young sapphics), it unfortunately never deepens into something fully realized. It only gestures toward the feeling and atmosphere of emotional complexity, rather than materializing its substance in full.