Right off the bat, “Girls Like Girls” deals in the familiar conventions of coming-of-age stories.
We meet our protagonist, Coley (Maya da Costa), riding her bike through the wooded streets of rural Oregon – wind softly tousling her hair, the breeze only a slight reprieve from the oppressive heat of summer. Immediately, the film has all the trappings of a sun-drenched, indie film about growing up and falling in love.
This is all stuff we’ve seen before, and “Girls Like Girls” does not shy away from being exactly what it is. Sometimes it gets a little lost in those conventions, feeling a little unsure of itself – but it’s heart is undeniable.
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First-time writer/director Haley Kiyoko (the script was co-written with Stefanie Scott, from a story by Kiyoko and Chloe Okuno), better known for her music career, has been working on making “Girls Like Girls” for roughly 10 years. The film is based on her debut novel, which is in turn based on a song of the same name – and that indie music video influence is clear in Kiyoko’s visual style. The film itself is a charming debut – if a little cliche at times, with hints of awkwardness that don’t quite hit the teenage sensibility the film is going for. But even the moments that don’t quite congeal are bolstered by the film’s sweetness and wonderful chemistry between its two leads.
Coley’s afternoon bike ride is interrupted by the appearance of a group of local teens, including Sonya (Myra Molloy), who looks like a Disney princess come to life. Coley is new and town and not really in the market for friends – she’s dealing with the sudden death of her mother, and a shaky relationship with a father who only recently came back into her life (Zach Braff). But she’s quickly sucked into Sonya’ orbit, and the two spend the summer falling in and out of love, growing up in the process.
The places where “Girls Like Girls” stumbles feel like the familiar stumbles of a first-time filmmaker, particularly when it comes to the film’s dialogue and pacing. In trying to capture the awkwardness of teenage love, Kiyoko allows for a lot of space between lines (and some of those lines are a bit cringe-inducing, even more so than the normal bounds of teenage cringe-dom). But, as the film goes along, the film starts to find its groove, particularly as we see more of Molloy and da Costa together. The young actors capture the newness of the tension arising between Sonya and Coley, and da Costa in particular gently holds the vulnerability, joy, and terror of young love in her whole being. There’s so much rawness and trepidation in her every glance.
The movie is conventional, but for the most part those conventions are done well – tropes are tropes for a reason, after all. The music video of it all comes through in the images, and there are a few striking moments that so succinctly capture what it feels like to fall in love. An arm held out of the shower, so that the phone number written on it doesn’t wash away. Two girls sitting in the backseat of a car, draping their limbs over each other, each move punctuated by subtle eye contact to make sure neither one of them is crossing a line. Visually, you can see the girls’ connection growing without much said between them.
Following the usual arc of these types of stories, there is, of course, a breaking point – a crash after the crescendo of falling in love. Sonya, having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that she’s developing romantic feelings for another girl, begins to drift away. Molloy shines in these moments, delivering a performance that’s as painfully aloof and cruel as it is fearful.
The stretch of the movie after the fallout between Sonya and Coley features some of its best moments as Coley learns who she is without Sonya around, building a connection with herself and her father, which leads to a couple of genuinely tearjerking moments (Braff is wonderful as dad a little lost in the wind trying to understand his daughter, but trying his damndest to make it work). Convention, of course, will bring Coley and Sonya back together, but the movie walks the line of sympathy for her without ever letting her off the hook, stressing the point that what these two feel for each other is anything but wrong. “Girls Like Girls” might not get everything right, but it certainly lands that emotional truth.
