Girls Like Girls Movie Review
Bottom Line
Choose it for tender lead performances, dreamy mid-2000s atmosphere, and an emotionally sincere queer first-love story. Skip it if familiar plotting, underwritten side characters, or slow-burn pacing outweigh representation and mood.
Best for
Best for queer coming-of-age fans, Hayley Kiyoko followers, and viewers drawn to tender first-love stories, expressive performances, and detailed 2006 nostalgia.
Not for
Those seeking an unpredictable plot, fully developed supporting characters, brisk pacing, or a self-contained ending before the credits may find it frustrating.
Verdict
Girls Like Girls succeeds most as an intimate emotional experience rather than a tightly developed romance. Maya da Costa and Myra Molloy bring vulnerability, chemistry, and expressive detail to a familiar first-love story, while Hayley Kiyoko’s warm visual direction and carefully recreated 2006 setting give it a distinctive nostalgic glow. The film’s grief, self-worth, and queer self-acceptance themes often land powerfully. However, the screenplay leaves Sonya and the supporting characters underwritten, relies heavily on montage, and shifts between slow stretches and rushed developments. The abrupt cut to credits is also frustrating unless viewers stay for the more satisfying post-credits conclusion.
Feature Scorecards
Summary
42 reviewed features- Very positive 4.5-5.0 38% 16 features
- Positive 3.5-4.4 36% 15 features
- Neutral 2.5-3.4 26% 11 features
- Negative 1.5-2.4 0% 0 features
- Very negative below 1.5 0% 0 features
Pros
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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.
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The wistful, intimate mood remains remarkably steady, avoiding both excessive melodrama and sugary sentimentality.
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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.
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The story is simple and easy to follow, centering Coley’s growth more than the fate of the romance.
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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.
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The restrained approach to physical intimacy is viewed as appropriate and refreshingly non-exploitative.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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As a queer coming-of-age romance, it delivers tenderness, yearning, heartbreak, and self-discovery even when it follows familiar genre beats.
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Age-appropriate casting helps the teenage emotions and awkwardness feel believable rather than overly polished.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The moody score and era-aware musical cues deepen the film’s wistful tone and emotional beats without overwhelming the story.
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Mid-2000s fashion details such as platform flip-flops and period styling reinforce the setting without feeling like costume-party shorthand.
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The small-town spaces, early internet culture, and mid-2000s objects create a convincing social world shaped by isolation, nostalgia, and closeted desire.
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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.
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Its warm atmosphere, emotional leads, and Pride-season appeal make it an enjoyable watch despite familiar plotting.
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Playful moments and awkward teenage behavior provide welcome relief from the grief and romantic turmoil.
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Ambient outdoor sound and intimate sonic detail can be immersive, though one reaction criticized the music mix for becoming too loud.
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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.
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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.
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The awkward glances, mixed signals, and queer uncertainty often feel authentic and lived-in. A few stylized or scripted moments undercut that naturalism.
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The warm, colorful, close-up-heavy style creates a strong dreamlike identity. Some viewers find the nostalgic orange haze heavy-handed or insufficiently varied.
Cons
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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.
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Critical reactions lean positive but not unanimous, with praise for the performances and emotional sincerity balanced by complaints about thin plotting and uneven pacing.
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The screenplay has genuine sensitivity and several strong emotional ideas, but it often relies on familiar structure, thin side characters, and abbreviated development.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The film follows a recognizable summer-romance and coming-of-age structure, with few major surprises or unconventional turns.
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At roughly 95 minutes, the film can paradoxically feel both stretched in its quieter passages and too compressed in its dramatic transitions.
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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.
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The supporting cast has warm individual moments, but thinly written roles limit their impact and leave the film heavily dependent on the leads.
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AIM exchanges and romantic uncertainty create localized tension, but the larger conflict is often too abstract or underdeveloped to sustain strong suspense.
Cast & Creators
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ColeyMaya da Costa is the film’s emotional anchor, conveying grief, longing, anger, and growing confidence with unusually expressive restraint. Her performance is the most consistently praised element.
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DirectorHayley Kiyoko’s direction is strongest in intimate visual details, mood, and the quiet physical language of first love. Her feature debut shows clear sensitivity even where the screenplay and pacing divide opinion.
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SonyaMyra Molloy gives Sonya charm, volatility, and flashes of fear beneath her confident façade. Her work is widely admired, though some reactions blame the writing for leaving Sonya’s shifts insufficiently explained.
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CurtisZach Braff’s subdued father performance is generally warm and touching, especially in the later grief scenes. A smaller group found him miscast or unable to supply the role’s full emotional range.
Compared With Category Average
Compared with other Movies, this product is above average in plot clarity, violence level, sexual content level, below average in supporting cast performance.
Summary
8 compared features- Above average 0.4+ pts higher 88% 7 features
- Same as average within 0.3 pts 0% 0 features
- Below average 0.4+ pts lower 13% 1 feature
| Attribute | This product | Category average | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| plot clarity | 5.0 | 2.8 | +2.2 |
| violence level | 5.0 | 2.9 | +2.1 |
| sexual content level | 5.0 | 2.9 | +2.1 |
| age appropriateness | 4.5 | 2.9 | +1.6 |
| tonal consistency | 5.0 | 3.5 | +1.5 |
| rewatch value | 5.0 | 3.5 | +1.5 |
| supporting cast performance | 2.5 | 3.9 | -1.4 |
| production design | 4.8 | 3.7 | +1.1 |
FAQ
Is Girls Like Girls mainly a romance?
It is a queer first-love story, but Coley’s grief, self-worth, family wounds, and growing independence are just as central as whether the relationship succeeds.
Are the lead performances good?
Yes. Maya da Costa is the most consistently praised element, while Myra Molloy is widely admired for balancing Sonya’s confidence, volatility, and fear.
Is the movie faithful to the song, video, and novel?
It keeps the original visual and emotional DNA, includes many fan callbacks, and condenses or changes parts of the novel. The removal of the music video’s assault is generally viewed as an improvement.
Does the film feel slow?
The pacing is deliberately patient and mood-driven. Some find that approach intimate and absorbing, while others criticize dead air, repeated montages, and rushed transitions late in the story.
Should viewers stay through the credits?
Yes. The post-credits scene provides the more romantic and satisfying conclusion that several reactions felt was missing from the initial cut to black.
Who is the film most likely to connect with?
It is most likely to resonate with sapphic audiences, nostalgic millennials, younger queer viewers, and anyone who values emotional authenticity over plot novelty.
Sample Expert Reviews We Analyzed
These are a few of the reviews included in our analysis.
Video Reviews
YouTube - LadyJenevia
- Review score
- 4.3
YouTube - Forever Fangirls Reviews
- Review score
- 4.8
Article Reviews
bostonhassle.com
- Review score
- 4.6
chicagoreader.com
Girls Like Girls is nothing groundbreaking, but it’s a fun Pride watch from first-time director Hayley Kiyoko.
- Review score
- 3.6
awardsradar.com
While it contains impassioned performances, the aesthetic and thematic presentation of Girls Like Girls lacks in vision.
- Review score
- 2.9
awardswatch.com
Every queer person understands the pains of teenage yearning. In those formative years, who didn’t fall deep into the throes of an...
- Review score
- 3.4
Compared in Reviews
Products reviewers directly compared with this model, grouped into quick takeaways.
- Worse: overall coming-of-age execution The reviewer preferred this film when watching both queer coming-of-age stories together.
CODA
- Similar: melodramatic structure and pacing The charming opening and heavier back-half melodrama are compared with CODA.
Desert Hearts
- Similar: queer romance structure Its simple friendship-to-love structure is compared with a landmark queer romance.
Consider This Instead
If you want better supporting cast performance
Choose The Invite. It scores 4.9 vs 2.5 for supporting cast performance, with a 4.5 overall score.
If you want better suspense
Choose Leviticus. It scores 4.6 vs 2.5 for suspense, with a 4.2 overall score.
If you want better plot originality
Choose Bouchra. It scores 5.0 vs 2.8 for plot originality, with a 4.3 overall score.
If you want better dialogue quality
Choose Rose of Nevada. It scores 4.2 vs 2.6 for dialogue quality, with a 4.4 overall score.
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