Girls Like Girls is the kind of movie that I wish I had growing up. Because being a teenager is hard. You’ve got all these hormones going through you and you’re facing societal and familial expectations on top of a looming future. Throw crushes and a possible first love on top of that and it’s a disaster. And if that crush just so happens to be of the same gender, while not having the tools to process that, things are 10 times worse.
Starring Maya da Costa as Coley and Myra Molloy as Sonya, Girls Like Girls is Hayley Kiyoko’s lifelong dream on the big screen. It started off as a music video ten years ago that transformed into a book and now a movie. And you can tell that this story was very personal for Kiyoko for the very same reason I gave in the introduction of this review. We didn’t have movies like this growing up. But now, in 2026, there will be a teenage girl who sees themselves in these two characters. And they’ll grow up with the knowledge and representation that shows them their love is normal.
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Girls Like Girls also made me realize that we don’t have enough sapphic offerings when it comes to movies even 10 years after the music video came out. With 100% certainty, I can’t name the last time a mainstream movie blatantly stated front and center that the core relationship was between two women. And even though gay movies are far and few in between, I can name Red, White, and Royal Blue, Leviticus, Love, Simon off the top of my head. In a post-Heated Rivalry world, in a post-Girls Like Girls world, this needs to change.
Kiyoko’s persistence is the reason why Girls Like Girls exist. She took the joy, pain, uncertainty, and hope of first sapphic love and transformed it into something relatable. And she brought on young talent and set it in a 2016 that had me giggling because what do you mean that’s a sidekick or that she’s wearing that top that I totally wore in high school. It’s nostalgia wrapped in Kiyoko’s memories, but also hopes and dreams, delivered to a modern audience that needs this kind of queer joy.
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Keeping all of that in mind, Girls Like Girls isn’t perfect.
Sometimes it felt like the movie was spending more time telling me what was happening instead of showing me. And the lead was the one that I felt least of an emotional connection to no matter how much I tried. It was only made worse by the fact that the ending felt a little bit abrupt and was my least favorite tag on AO3 aka hopeful ending. It’s only after the credits that there is certainty about where Coley and Sonya’s relationship is going to go. And that works against the movie because sometimes people don’t stay and watch the credits, leading to some viewers feeling unsatisfied when it comes to the conclusion of this movie.
Girls Like Girls is now in theaters.
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