Girls Like Girls
Both summer and the past must come to an end.
Lesbian singer Hayley Kiyoko’s synth-pop song “Girls Like Girls” was released in 2015. Following the success of the song and music video, a young adult book was released in 2023, before finally getting a film adaptation. “Girls like girls, like boys do, nothing new,” the recognizable tune bounces, becoming a sapphic anthem. The film opens with a near-identical shot to the music video—a teenage girl riding a yellow bike with the green of summer in the background.
Coley, the new girl in a small Oregon town, represents Kiyoko. She is played with a dramatic curiosity by a total newcomer, Maya da Costa, whose resemblance to the pop singer certainly helped her win the part. The “emotionally unavailable to everyone” Sonya (Myra Molloy) catches Coley’s eye and then can’t decide what (or who) she wants. The girls’ lips are drawn together like magnets that just won’t quite touch for the longest time—and the will-they-wont-they of the many potential kisses is less gay panic than typical teenage eroticism. This constraint gives the movie the romantic charge it survives on.
While the song came out in 2015, the film is set much earlier; back when teenagers used AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) to communicate and the cool kids’ phones had sliding keyboards. Morgan Lindsey Price’s period piece production design adds more than cheap nostalgia: it corroborates the feeling of a summertime first love by reminding us that both summer and the past must come to an end.
Continue reading at The Rapidian.