I was a latecomer to Hayley Kiyoko. Due to my own queerness journey, I didn’t discover Lesbian Jesus until 2018, smack in the middle of the Expectations era. It didn’t take long for me to do a deep dive into her back catalog. That’s when I first saw the music video for the song “Girls Like Girls.” I was struck by the story it told. Even though I was in my thirties the first time I saw it, the video touched something deep in my heart. If I felt that way at 32, I can only imagine how it would have felt seeing it at 16.
Fans have been asking Kiyoko to make a feature-length version of the music video for years, and it’s clear she did this for them. Eleven years after the music video first premiered, Kiyoko is blessing us with the full-length feature film version of Girls Like Girls. Before it was a movie, Kiyoko adapted it into a young adult novel, which was her first foray into expanding the story of Coley and Sonya, the protagonists of the music video.
For the uninitiated, the Girls Like Girls film tells the story of Coley (Maya da Costa), a teenage girl who has recently moved to the pacific northwest to live with her absent dad after her mom’s death. Shortly after her arrival, she runs into a group of teens at a local diner, and there she meets Sonya (Myra Molloy). Over the course of the summer, the girls’ close friendship turns romantic, which causes tension, and they are forced to confront things about themselves.
There are so many callbacks to the original music video. Kiyoko co-wrote the film with Stefanie Scott, who starred in the music video as Coley. I don’t want to give away too many of the callbacks, but rest assured, Coley’s signature denim jacket and yellow bike are there. Others are packaged differently, so it may take a second to realize them. I actually had to go back and watch the music video to track more parallels between it and the film. Looking for them turns into a fun scavenger hunt.
Unfortunately, the movie lacks in tension. Every story needs a villain, and I feel like they were all abstract in Girls Like Girls. The stakes would have felt higher for both characters if that was more clearly defined. Sonya talks a lot about outside pressure impacting her choices, but we never see that pressure actually play out. More than once, she mentions her mom puts a lot of pressure on her, but we never see her interact with her mom except for a few moments in passing. This tension remains a peripheral force, and as a result, the actual impact on the character isn’t fully felt.
Sonya’s boyfriend Trenton (Levon Hawke) similarly functions more like a peripheral character, often cited as a source of conflict in the film without actually being very present. He is barely in the movie, and the boyfriend character looms so large in the original music video. There was an opportunity here to expand or even complicate his character, and I wish they had taken it to deepen the narrative. You could easily take this character out of the movie, and it would only change one scene.
I also would have loved to see Coley have some external stakes. She is incredibly wounded with grief, which is a great character device. But I think what I was missing was how she presented that to the world other than just not talking much. Juxtaposing the way she was with the rest of Sonya’s friends versus Sonya could have added a layer that shows she doesn’t easily let people know her.
However, I did like how this presented itself in the relationship between Coley and her father. It was trippy seeing Zach Braff playing someone’s dad, but I was won over after a couple scenes. Coley’s dad genuinely tries to connect with his daughter. Being a dad to a teenage girl is tricky when you’ve raised her, but then to add insult to injury, he left the family when she was young. His fight to be able to get through to her was such a bright spot throughout the film.
I absolutely loved the nostalgic feel of the movie. It’s weird to have been alive long enough that my youth is considered historical fiction, but here we are. The movie takes place in 2006, and there is a hazy effect Kiyoko uses that enhances the nostalgia aspect and also contributes well to the dream-like feeling of meeting your first crush and falling in love, especially during summer.
The attention to detail for the time period is spot-on. Sonya and her friends wear platform flip flops, which felt so right. I guess it doesn’t hurt that mid-aughts fashion is back in style (lol sob). I loved that Sonya uses a Sidekick phone. And Coley has a boxy iPod with the click wheel, easily one of the top three things from the 2000s I am genuinely nostalgic for.
When they’re not together, Sonya and Coley talk to each other using AIM, and that was so perfect. It reminded me of being in my teens and talking to the girl I had a thing with in high school. When I heard the creaking door sound effect signaling someone signed on in the film, my heart stopped, and I was thrown back 20 years. AIM was such an integral part of our experience at that time. And it is an excellent source of tension. Do you IM them first? Do you let them IM you? The stress of being on AIM at the same time as your crush was such a heady experience, and I felt it so deeply during those moments in the film.
Also, I have to talk about the soundtrack. The needledrops are top tier; within the first 20 minutes of the movie, we get a vintage Tegan and Sara track that took me right back to college. Kiyoko released an actual soundtrack to the film, which includes features by queer artists including Tegan and Sara, Joy Oladokun, Gigi Perez, and Snow Wife. She even recorded a new version of “Girls Like Girls” for it.
If the song and/or music video made an impact on you when you were young, you won’t be disappointed by the film version of Girls Like Girls. There was a group of women in front of me during the screening who were probably teens when the video came out. I’m pretty sure at least one of them was crying when it was over. Hayley Kiyoko knew how much this movie was going to mean to the fans who had been waiting for it. But she also did a really solid job of making space for a new generation to fall in love with Sonya and Coley.
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Sa’iyda is a writer and mom who lives in LA with her partner, son and 3 adorable, albeit very extra animals. She has yet to meet a chocolate chip cookie she doesn’t like, spends her free time (lol) reading as many queer romances as she can, and has spent the better part of her life obsessed with late 90s pop culture.
Sa'iyda Shabazz has written 158 articles for us.
My wife and I went to watch the movie with a bunch of other nostalgic gays and I have to admit, I thought the best part of the movie was the involuntary comments the audience made. I feel like the original music video somehow had higher stakes and more plot than the hour and thirty minute movie? Also, watching the movie made me INCREDIBLY grateful to no longer be a teenager.
A lot of the missing character development and tension/villain is in the book! It was a great movie and I’ll always show up for more queer women of color representation and production, and I agree with your critiques.
I found myself wondering if people who hadn’t read the book were following the “why” or if certain characters or elements were only hitting for me because my brain was filling in context from the book. Highly recommend reading the book before or as a follow up to watching the movie! It fills in a lot of blanks that weren’t or couldn’t be filled in during a 95 minute movie.
I almost always say the book is better than the movie but I think in this case, they’re better together?
Also I had no idea there was a post-credit scene, and tbh I kinda feel like it should’ve just been the actual ending, rather than a post-ending end? So heads up about that!
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A lack of tension is a great way to put it.
And absolutely agree with Jen above about the whys being in the book. I left and was curious how those who hadn’t read the book would feel. I fear the parts cut were often the plot that would’ve made it stronger.
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