We’re clearly in an era where millennials yearn for the bygone textures of their adolescence, evinced by the abundance of recent Y2K “period pieces.” The last few years have given us Earth Mama, Savanah Leaf’s lush film about a pregnant young mother navigating the lack of resources available to her in the Bay Area in the early aughts; Dìdi, Sean Wang’s loose self-portrait of a Taiwanese-American kid (also in the Bay Area) circa 2008; and Jane Shoenbrun’s I Saw The TV Glow, a cautionary tale of self-repression, the second half of which takes place during 2006. This could arguably all trace back to Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s groundbreaking depiction of a headstrong high school senior who navigates crushes, familial tension, and college applications in 2002. But it takes a lot more than era-accurate details to fully sell a time and place, and Hayley Kiyoko’s Girls Like Girls adds another layer of realism to this specific coming-of-age moment: navigating queer desire.
Singer-songwriter Kiyoko makes her directorial debut with an adaptation of her 2023 novel of the same name, itself inspired by the extended play and music video “Girls Like Girls” from her 2015 album This Side Of Paradise. “Girls like girls, like boys do, nothing new,” Kiyoko confidently croons on the track. But this self-assured air is totally foreign to Coley (newcomer Maya da Costa), who finds herself thrust into a completely new environment after the sudden death of her mother. So she packs up her life and moves to Oregon, now the ward of her estranged father (a low-key turn from Zach Braff), a retired touring musician.
Coley’s dad is smart enough to give the 17-year-old ample space, setting her up in his house’s wood-paneled attic. Depressive shock has prevented the teen from truly making the space her own: Her dull-colored bedsheets are always crumpled about, and even her chunky beige desktop—clearly a treasured possession—sits haphazardly on the carpeted floor. She types by placing her keyboard atop her knees, the satisfyingly soft click of each key offset by this wobbly set-up. But her iTunes library and lean AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) contact list only provides so much indoor entertainment. One day, she rides her bike to a local swimming spot surrounded by verdant evergreens. It’s here that she meets Sonya (Myra Molloy, Broadway actress and Thailand’s Got Talent winner), a gregarious redhead who scrawls her AIM username on Coley’s forearm. “Promise you’ll message me tonight?” she asks with a smile.
The two soon become inseparable, spending hours poolside at Sonya’s sizable home and in far-flung corners of the surrounding wilderness. There’s clearly a tenderness there, though both girls are reluctant to demystify the nature of their relationship. The fact that they’re both girls also prevents parents and peers from registering any hints of romance in their gestures: they hold hands, sit on each other’s laps, and bunk together during sleepovers. “Olive juice,” Sonya whispers to Coley during a particularly emotional exchange. What she means to say is “I love you,” but this approximation is the closest they can go without crossing the threshold into overt queerness—which, at the time, still possessed an implicit social danger. Coley has clearly begun the process of unraveling the reality of her desire—her interactions with boys and men range from uninterested to hostile—but for the popular Sonya, confronting her attraction to Coley feels much more loaded.
Even though her cool-kid boyfriend (Levon Hawke, son of Ethan, younger sibling of Maya) is basically a walking advertisement for the pitfalls of heterosexuality (at one point, he refuses to apply calamine lotion to a poison ivy rash because its pink color means it’s “gay”), Sonya is terrified to abandon the clout that their relationship affords her. But, then again, she also flat-out ditches him to hang out with Coley all the time. When they first meet, Coley not-so-subtly asks Sonya if she has a boyfriend. “I’m emotionally unavailable to all,” she jokes. So when Sonya suddenly gives Coley the cold shoulder and goes back to her boy toy, no one can say the lithe competitive dancer wasn’t honest about her M.O.
But it’s refreshing that a coming-of-age rom-com features these kinds of faltering feelings and messy teenage emotions in lieu of transposing adult sentiments onto what is, at the end of the day, an intense crush. This means that Girls Like Girls always leans into vulnerability, reflecting the anxious tumult of adolescence (or, as in sparse yet affecting scenes between Coley and her father, the ongoing growing pains of adulthood). The film also loses the grittier abuse narrative of the music video, which found Coley bruised and bloody (in the vein of “you should see the other guy”) after an altercation with Sonya’s boyfriend. However, by making the core tension one of self-acceptance, the film’s stakes are as muted as the denim jacket Coley finds in the attic, which once belonged to her mother. It’s understandable for Kiyoko to represent queer lives as being as full of quotidian joys and dramas as straight ones, but that feels a tad anachronistic amid the Y2K set dressing. Then again, who’s starved for another queer tragedy?
Girls Like Girls is a sweet little gem, particularly in how it represents the decade in a warm, naturalistic manner, allowing details like Lipsmackers, CDs, and elastic chokers to read as genuine instead of forced. (Those who remember the trill of dial-up should be impressed with how naturally the lead actors engage with their clunky computers). The point, though, is that what’s unfolding on screen is timeless. The “nothing new” lyric in Kiyoko’s original song is a pointed commentary: Queer people have existed for the full breadth of human history. Whether their romance unfolded on Lesbos, over AIM messages, or wherever young people currently congregate, it’s well worth getting swept up in.
Director: Hayley Kiyoko
Writer: Hayley Kiyoko, Stefanie Scott
Starring: Maya da Costa, Myra Molloy, Levon Hawke, Zach Braff
Release Date: June 19, 2026
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