Girls Like Girls Review: The Perfect Summer Romance Movie

Girls Like Girls has genuinely been one of my most anticipated releases of the year. A decade-plus-long passion project of writer, director, and all-around lesbian icon Hayley Kiyoko, based on her 2015 song and 2023 novel of the same name, a coming-of-age sapphic romance with an early-2000s aesthetic and girly pop needle drops is about as me-coded a thing as you can get without also going into genre fiction. And I am happy to report that the final film is just as joyful, tear-jerking, and unabashedly gay as I expected, possibly even more so.

What is Girls Like Girls about?

Credit: Focus Features

Set over the course of one summer during the early to mid-2000s, our story centers around Coley, played by newcomer Maya da Costa, a young woman who has just moved to a small town in Oregon with her previously distant father, played by Zach Braff, in the aftermath of her mother’s passing. While initially a loner, one day Coley finds herself swept into a local friend group, particularly being infatuated with Sonya, a competitive dancer and perky go-getter, played by Myra Molloy, desperate to escape the constant pressure of her fair but strict mother.

Together, Coley and Sonya find out more about themselves and each other than they ever thought possible, sharing a connection that is at once terrifying yet feels righter than anything else they’ve ever experienced. And through that love, along with the tribulations and joys that come with it, these two women will discover who they were truly meant to be.

Girls Like Girls Review

Credit: Focus Features

There are two big things that make Girls Like Girls work as well as it does. Firstly, the romantic leads are absolutely adorable together. Maya da Costa and Myra Molloy as Coley and Sonya have instant chemistry, great banter, and it’s hard not to “awwww” at every soft touch and shared glance between the two. While Hayley Kiyoko keeps things mostly grounded from a directorial standpoint, save for some sweeping landscape shots, she clearly knows how to direct two women falling in love and watching our leads’ relationship grow absolutely filled my lesbian heart.

But I think what really sells it is just how authentic it feels. Coley and Sonya are not simply vessels for sapphic AMVs, they’re real people. They have wants and needs, they have quirks, they make mistakes, they feel like a couple you would actually meet in real life. The awkward unsureness, the euphoric passion, the writing and rewriting of messages just to make absolutely sure you’re not saying something wrong, this might be the most accurate reflection of first-time sapphic love I have ever seen in a mainstream movie.

Credit: Focus Features

And unlike so many other mainstream queer films, even the good ones, Girls Like Girls is in no way a tragedy. It certainly doesn’t shy away from the struggles of coming out or the specific issues faced by queer people and queer relationships, but it never views these hardships as anything more than obstacles that can and will be overcome. It’s not a movie about how sad it is that a person can only find love with someone that society says they can’t be with, it’s a movie about how amazing it is to find someone who truly gets you and loves you for who you are and how what anyone else might think about that is completely irrelevant.

To that end, one of the only, even minor, criticisms I could give of the film is that the supporting cast ultimately falls a little flat. Zach Braff does make a surprisingly lovable turn as Coley’s refreshingly supportive father and Levon Hawke as Trenton does such an impressive job of being hateable that I was legitimately disappointed when they didn’t adapt the part of the original music video wherein his character’s equivalent gets punched in the face by the Coley equivalent. But the rest of the friend group and the other extended cast are mostly just kind of around.

Credit: Focus Features

But this in service of tightening the script and buoying the central romance, the ultimate focus of the film, so it’s understandable. What’s slightly less understandable is the way it handles the ending. Without spoiling anything, the ending does work very well, but said ending is saved for a post-credits scene while the film’s main ending feels strangely abrupt. Maybe it’s simply a testament to how swept in I was by the story that I was surprised to be taken out of it at all, maybe they reasonably expected that everyone would stay through the credits if only to hear the new version of the “Girls Like Girls” song, but the choice nevertheless felt slightly odd to me.

Is Girls Like Girls worth watching?

Credit: Focus Features

There are plenty of great reasons to see Girls Like Girls. If you, like me, are sapphic yourself, obviously you should see this movie. If you have sapphic friends, you should see this movie. If you care about queer representation, you should see this movie. If you want more original films in theaters, you should see this movie.

But most importantly, if you’ve ever been in love with someone, or simply ever wanted to know what being in love was like, you should see this movie. It’s a monument to the beauty and joys of love in all its forms. It made my cry, it made my heart soar, and it is without a doubt one of the best films I’ve seen this year.

Girls Like Girls is now playing in theaters.

Girls Like Girls Review: The Perfect Summer Romance Movie