Compare Girls Like Girls vs Underland

The two leads carry the film with expressive, emotionally grounded work, and even harsher reactions usually separate their performances from the script’s weaknesses. Supporting performances draw more mixed responses.

Age-appropriate casting helps the teenage emotions and awkwardness feel believable rather than overly polished.

The science and central ideas are presented clearly enough for older children to follow, while the philosophical material still offers depth for adults. Tight spaces and danger may unsettle sensitive viewers.

The digital graphics at the conclusion are less impressive than the live-action photography, making the ending feel visually weaker.

Brief archival material is used sparingly within connective montages, adding historical texture without interrupting the film’s flow.

The film connects most strongly with queer viewers, nostalgic millennials, and anyone who remembers the intensity of first love. Some viewers outside its core fan base may find the story too thin or inward-looking.

The film can draw in viewers who know little about caves, dark matter, or underground exploration through striking imagery and accessible human stories. Its meditative style will appeal most to audiences comfortable with unanswered questions.

Coley receives a clear grief-and-self-acceptance arc, while Sonya and several side characters often feel less fully explored. The imbalance leaves parts of the relationship emotionally convincing but narratively underwritten.

The three central explorers are compelling, but the short runtime keeps their histories, motivations, and work from receiving the depth many critics wanted.

The leads’ chemistry is usually the film’s strongest pull, especially in quiet looks, touches, and private moments. A minority found the spark too muted to justify the relationship’s pain.

Sunlit exteriors, intimate close-ups, and a hazy summer palette create a dreamy sense of longing. The look is widely admired, though some found the soft-focus style too uniform for heavier scenes.

The underground photography is the film’s clearest triumph, turning caves, storm drains, laboratories, roots, and debris into haunting, otherworldly images. Limited light and close detail make the hidden Earth feel both intimate and immense.

Mid-2000s fashion details such as platform flip-flops and period styling reinforce the setting without feeling like costume-party shorthand.

Critical reactions lean positive but not unanimous, with praise for the performances and emotional sincerity balanced by complaints about thin plotting and uneven pacing.

The film’s unusual visual and philosophical qualities prompted near-masterpiece comparisons, though explanatory gaps kept some critics from embracing it completely.

The film treats queer teenage love as ordinary, specific, and worthy of a wide theatrical canvas. Its unapologetically sapphic focus is a major strength for viewers who rarely saw themselves centered in coming-of-age stories.

The Yucatán passages treat Mayan history, sacred caves, ancestry, and ancient markings with curiosity and respect. This thread is one of the film’s strongest links between personal identity and deep time.

The dialogue ranges from natural, awkward teenage speech to lines described as stiff, cringey, or overly YA-styled. The quiet visual storytelling often works better than the spoken exchanges.

The sparse spoken material can be calm and evocative, but the poetic voiceover divides opinion. Some find it transporting; others think the images would be stronger without it.

Hayley Kiyoko shows a strong eye for intimacy, mood, and emotional detail in her feature debut. Reactions split over whether the music-video sensibility fully sustains a feature-length narrative.

Petit’s direction is visually confident, sensorial, and unusually ambitious for a documentary adaptation. He succeeds at creating wonder, though the three-part structure sometimes limits depth and cohesion.

The editing can effectively capture glances, memory, and emotional shifts, but rapid cuts and montage-heavy passages sometimes rush key developments or blur the passage of time.

The cross-cutting often creates elegant visual and thematic links among Mexico, Las Vegas, and Canada. Some critics found the transitions seamless, while others felt the constant switching weakened immersion in each individual story.

The film’s strongest moments make first love, grief, rejection, and self-acceptance feel immediate and raw. Even mixed reactions often acknowledge that the central emotions land.

The strongest passages inspire awe, unease, melancholy, and a humbling sense of humanity’s small place in time. Ancient handprints, hidden lives, and uncertain scientific quests give the film lasting emotional weight.

The final resolution is divisive because the main cut to black can feel abrupt, while the post-credits scene supplies the romantic closure many viewers wanted. Staying through the credits materially improves the payoff.

The conclusion reinforces the idea that all life is connected, which works powerfully for some viewers. Others found it conventional or visually weaker and felt the film never fully resolved its many ideas.

Its warm atmosphere, emotional leads, and Pride-season appeal make it an enjoyable watch despite familiar plotting.

The film offers a visually absorbing, thought-provoking experience rather than a conventional fact-heavy documentary. It is especially rewarding for viewers drawn to unknown places, science, and atmospheric filmmaking.

The adaptation preserves the music video’s visual DNA, emotional core, and fan callbacks while condensing or changing several book elements. The removal of the original assault is widely welcomed.

The adaptation preserves the book’s poetic sensibility, hidden landscapes, and philosophical curiosity while taking a more streamlined visual approach. Several critics felt the compression sacrifices political urgency and thematic heft.

The documentary is broadly suitable for family viewing and can spark discussion about science, history, culture, and the environment. Families should consider whether intense cave and storm-drain imagery will bother younger viewers.

As a queer coming-of-age romance, it delivers tenderness, yearning, heartbreak, and self-discovery even when it follows familiar genre beats.

As an experimental documentary about hidden worlds, it delivers striking images, intriguing questions, and a distinctive mood. Viewers seeking definitive answers or a traditional explanatory structure may be less satisfied.

Playful moments and awkward teenage behavior provide welcome relief from the grief and romantic turmoil.

The three subjects explain their goals, risks, and motivations with clarity and sincerity. Their own words often carry more weight than the film’s poetic interludes.

The scientific concepts are presented in accessible, beginner-friendly terms without reducing the film’s philosophical ambition. Most viewers can follow the ideas even without specialist knowledge.

Maya da Costa gives the film its emotional center with restrained body language, wounded intensity, and a believable progression from guarded grief to self-possession.

The film’s clearest message is that self-acceptance and healthy love begin with believing you are worthy of both. Its queer representation is framed through ordinary human longing rather than spectacle.

The idea that everything is interconnected gives the film a clear, memorable center. Its strongest sequences connect past actions, present choices, and what future generations will inherit.

The core plot is familiar and rarely surprising, but the specific queer perspective, personal history, and mid-2000s setting give it a distinct emotional identity.

The film stands out as an experimental, style-forward documentary adaptation with a distinctive voice. Its blend of myth, science, observation, and sensory immersion feels unlike conventional nature or history documentaries.

The deliberate, slow-burn rhythm works for viewers who enjoy lingering mood and emotional detail. Others find the montages, dead air, and rushed late developments an uneven combination.

The 79-minute journey is generally brisk and absorbing, but the rhythm becomes uneven when the film jumps away from its most compelling sections. Some critics praised the restraint, while others wanted longer, more sustained immersion.

The story is simple and easy to follow, centering Coley’s growth more than the fate of the romance.

The basic journeys are easy to follow, but the film sometimes raises more questions than it answers and does not always explain why the scientific work matters. Its thematic connections can feel suggestive rather than fully argued.

The film follows a recognizable summer-romance and coming-of-age structure, with few major surprises or unconventional turns.

AIM windows, Sidekicks, iPods, CDs, bedrooms, and small-town hangouts make 2006 feel lived-in and emotionally specific. The period detail is one of the most consistently praised elements.

The awkward glances, mixed signals, and queer uncertainty often feel authentic and lived-in. A few stylized or scripted moments undercut that naturalism.

Its emotional warmth and representation inspired at least one strong desire to watch it again, especially among viewers connected to the original song and video.

The central romance is tender, volatile, and emotionally recognizable, with strong moments of yearning and intimacy. Some viewers wanted more dialogue, development, or chemistry before the heartbreak intensified.

At roughly 95 minutes, the film can paradoxically feel both stretched in its quieter passages and too compressed in its dramatic transitions.

At 79 minutes, the film often feels brisk and well judged, but several critics wanted more time with its three central journeys. Its compactness prevents drag while also leaving some discoveries underdeveloped.

The film is not conventional horror, but tight cave passages, darkness, flooding risks, and vast underground spaces may be intense for claustrophobic or agoraphobic viewers.

The moody score and era-aware musical cues deepen the film’s wistful tone and emotional beats without overwhelming the story.

Hannah Peel’s ethereal score complements the imagery and shifts effectively among natural, industrial, and scientific spaces. It is consistently praised as a major part of the film’s immersive atmosphere.

The screenplay has genuine sensitivity and several strong emotional ideas, but it often relies on familiar structure, thin side characters, and abbreviated development.

The writing ranges from carefully composed and evocative to overly rhetorical. Its best lines clarify the film’s interconnected themes, while weaker passages feel strained or too eager to explain.

The restrained approach to physical intimacy is viewed as appropriate and refreshingly non-exploitative.

Ambient outdoor sound and intimate sonic detail can be immersive, though one reaction criticized the music mix for becoming too loud.

Echoes, drips, machinery, silence, and low subterranean textures create a rich sensory experience. The sound work often makes the environments feel as physical as the images.

Period needle drops and queer artists give the soundtrack strong nostalgic and emotional appeal. The music feels carefully chosen rather than used as a greatest-hits showcase.

The story is emotionally sincere and easy to connect with, especially through Coley’s grief and self-worth arc. Its main limitation is a familiar, sometimes underdeveloped narrative framework.

The three underground journeys create an ambitious, often absorbing meditation on human curiosity and deep time. The structure can feel scattered or light on development, especially when it leaves a compelling thread just as it gains momentum.

The supporting cast has warm individual moments, but thinly written roles limit their impact and leave the film heavily dependent on the leads.

AIM exchanges and romantic uncertainty create localized tension, but the larger conflict is often too abstract or underdeveloped to sustain strong suspense.

The most dangerous cave and storm-drain passages create genuine tension, with the Las Vegas section frequently singled out as especially gripping.

The film meaningfully connects queer self-acceptance, grief, parental wounds, and the need to choose healthier love. Its emotional themes are deeper than its simple plot suggests.

The film draws rich connections among archaeology, poverty, science, ecology, mortality, and deep time. Its philosophical reach is compelling, though some critics found the narration shallower than the subject deserved.

The wistful, intimate mood remains remarkably steady, avoiding both excessive melodrama and sugary sentimentality.

The film moves among awe, melancholy, danger, hope, and myth-making while maintaining a coherent meditative atmosphere. Its ability to feel intimate and grand at once is a notable strength.

The decision to remove the original music video’s homophobic assault is seen as a thoughtful improvement that keeps the focus on emotional growth rather than physical trauma.

The warm, colorful, close-up-heavy style creates a strong dreamlike identity. Some viewers find the nostalgic orange haze heavy-handed or insufficiently varied.

The film sustains a striking, hypnotic aesthetic that blends documentary observation with poetic and science-fiction-like imagery. Even less enthusiastic critics found the subterranean worlds visually arresting.

The small-town spaces, early internet culture, and mid-2000s objects create a convincing social world shaped by isolation, nostalgia, and closeted desire.