Experimental Lesbianism in an Era of Puritanism and Hayley Kiyoko's Girls Like Girls
I am compelled to preface the following with an acknowledgement: Hayley Kiyoko has faced criticism for several unsavory tweets. The earlier anti-Black tweets may have been falsified; her tweet expressing concern for Israel (with no similar statements regarding the loss of lives in Palestine) was absolutely not. Her refusal to make any statement on any of these issues does not reflect positively on her. My writing about her movie and its content is in no way an endorsement of her past behavior or (alleged) present beliefs.
"Girls Like Girls" is a movie that, by all rights, should have been a box office hit. Perhaps it would have been ten years ago, when Kiyoko was at the peak of her popularity. If it had existed ten years ago, maybe it could have served as a cautionary tale for the girls who would re-live Coley's story beat-for-beat - myself included. In an era when Tumblr was alive and well, when the queer youth were fumbling through self-discovery via LiveJournal and the scant online resources targeting teenage girls; that is when "Girls Like Girls" would have properly flourished.
Hindsight is 20/20 though. In the modern, digital era of 2026, "Girls Like Girls" fails to deliver anything particularly revolutionary in the way that its five-minute-long predecessor did. In fact, despite a runtime nineteen times the length of the music video, the story fails to feel substantially more impactful or fleshed-out at all. That is, in some sense, a testament to how well-crafted the music video was; for five minutes to capture the same feeling as ninety-five, to illicit the same ache and tears and yearning, requires some particularly artful directing. That directing, had it been present in the movie (and its preceding book), would likely have helped the story to adapt to deliver the same raw emotion audiences had come to expect from Kiyoko.
Kiyoko's movie flopped because it is an unfortunate product of its era. Not in the way it uses LiveJournal and AIM messages, nor in the way it uses flip phones and somewhat dated lingo. Those aspects of the story, in all of its forms, are what gives it life - setting the story in a familiar and concrete time period. Rather, it is the overwhelming distillation and TikTok-era "unaliving" of any offense or meaningful depth that makes it a product of its era - 2026, the year of puritanism and regression-disguised-as-feminism, is what left "Girls Like Girls" dead on arrival.
Despite Kiyoko's thorough watering-down of any offensive points in the plot, it did little to shield her movie from the wrath of the powers that be - the MPA granted "Girls Like Girls" a bewildering R-rating. Their justification is "teen alcohol and drug use, and some language", contradicting their own standards for what distinguishes R from PG-13 in an appalling show of their true beliefs. Our greater neighbors to the north granted the film a PG, aside from Alberta - where it earned a 14-A, their approximate equivalent of our PG-13.
Kiyoko's pandering to the modern era of wholesome-cozy slop and milquetoast nods to real issues did nothing to appease the MPA or her audience - but it did plenty to destroy what originally made Kiyoko's work noteworthy. Her candor in depicting teen girls in love was chewed up and spit out into a facsimile of what teen love and angst truly are, leaving us with the hollowed-out remnants of what ought to have been a box office success.
If you have already seen the movie, feel free to skip to the page-break a bit further down. For those who haven't, a brief recap: Coley, formally Nicole, has moved to semi-rural Oregon after the death of her mother. Her father has taken custody of her, despite having been absent from her life since she was three. A chance encounter with Sonya in town sets her heart aflutter, but Sonya is a borderline alcoholic (and competitive dancer, her only other personality trait,) whose interest in Coley seems to eerily mirror how much she's had to drink that day.
Sonya's not-quite-a-relationship with generic asinine jock Trenton leaves Coley dubious Sonya reciprocates her crush, until they share a kiss in the woods one afternoon after Coley tearfully talks about the death of her mother. They grow distant, then close again at a party where Sonya drunkenly admits to Coley that she is unsure how she feels. They nearly hook up before being interrupted by Trenton, and Coley denies anything was going on before disappearing into the ebb and flow of the party, ultimately settling next to another man from their broader friend group named Alex. Coley sees Trenton and Sonya making out through a window, and kisses Alex in an attempt to cope. Alex, attempting to be kind, extends his condolences about the loss of Coley's mother - Coley is appalled Sonya shared that information with the group, and storms off.
After the party, Sonya makes herself even more scarce from Coley's life, leaving an already isolated Coley feeling even more uncertain and depressed. Coley learns Sonya is leaving for an intensive dance camp for the remainder of the summer, and feels betrayed that Sonya didn't tell her directly; Sonya tells Coley what they have isn't special and sends her on her way. Coley spirals into a worse depression, butting heads with her father and isolating herself. She gets high with the gas station clerk and winds up having underwhelming, unpleasant sex with her before wandering home in a fugue.
She has a breakdown in front of her father, who is eager to help and reassure her. They begin to build a meaningful connection, and he encourages her to get a job and try to get herself back on her feet, reminding her she deserves to find a person who doesn't make her cry like this. A timeskip later, Sonya and her family enter the restaurant where Coley has begun to work as a hostess. Sonya begs her to talk after her shift, and Coley begrudgingly agrees; the ensuing conversation is high-tension, with Sonya describing her feelings for Coley (and Coley herself) as "wrong", emphasizing her concerns about how her mother and her mother's friends would feel. Coley storms off yet again, leaving Sonya in tears in the parking lot - Sonya is later shown typing an apology message to Coley at home, confessing her feelings, before deleting it.
They meet again at the lake where they first hung out, and Coley quickly leaves before one of Sonya's friends chases her down. The friend apologizes for how the gossip about Coley's mother spread - another asinine move by Trenton, rather than Sonya having gossiped about it deliberately - and begs Coley to get back in touch with Sonya, inviting her to a party tomorrow night.
Coley does wind up attending the party, just in time to see Sonya blow up at Trenton and tell him that they are done before storming outside. Coley joins her poolside, and Sonya laments how tired she is of always running. Coley suggests perhaps she stop running, and the credits begin after a shot of them resting their heads together next to the pool. A post-credits scene shows Sonya chasing after Coley some indeterminate amount of time later, kissing her eagerly and deeply, teasing her about how she better message back later. The end.
The novel received remarkably middling reviews, both upon its release and later, after having settled into the market. While criticism of the story being generic can be hand-waved, criticism of the story being poorly written is harder to dismiss. Despite that, the story offers spectacular insight and depth to both girls, and the world they occupy as a whole. The movie, on the other hand, was written well enough, but lacked the depth and perspective of the novel instead; turning Coley into a confident lesbian pining after her already-taken friend that had kissed her once while inebriated. Coley's love, in turn, feels unreciprocated for the bulk of the story - a perfectly fine and realistic arrangement, but one that the previous entries managed to avoid with ease. For what it's worth - I have no complaint, personally, about the novel. The writing is very "young adult", but that was the intended audience. The story flows smoothly, and I would sooner read the story a dozen times than re-watch the movie knowing how starkly it pales in comparison.
Rather than the tale of a confused bicurious girl's self-discovery at the side of a troubled, struggling, newly-transplanted questioning lesbian, "Girls Like Girls" offers little more than yet another bland semi-romance about pining after a straight-ish girl - and unfortunately, it isn't only Sonya's reciprocal feelings that were lost in the transition from book to film.
Other lost details include: more nuance about Coley's relationship with her mother; Sonya's suspicions that Trenton was cheating on her; Coley's grief and anger about her mother's death; any details at all about Coley's relationship with her father (until the last twenty minutes of the movie, including credits); Coley's internal struggle with her sexuality; so, so much of the nuance and rhythm of Sonya's dynamic with her friends; Sonya's friends' standoffishness towards Coley; Coley's preexisting familiarity with weed; Alex's earnest kindness towards Coley; and Coley's emotional vulnerability from the very beginning of the story onward.
That's only the first five chapters of the novel, and it only scales exponentially from there. Chapter six drops a bombshell, by comparison - Sonya had broken up with Trenton before summer began. That detail alone shifts the entire center of gravity for the story that follows, a chain of cause-and-effect like a Rube Goldberg machine that ricochets through my mind, knocking every frame of the movie slightly akilter.
One of the more impactful scenes in the movie is the first time they drink together; playing around, dancing in Sonya's room, until she flushes and runs to the bathroom, throwing up from the champagne and Cheetos of earlier. She sends Coley home abruptly - too focused on her sudden discomfort for meaningful tact. In the novel, every beat of this moment plays out differently. Their hands meet on the couch when they settle in at Sonya's; holding each other by the pinky briefly before Sonya smiles and suggests they retreat to her room. When they dance, Sonya's laugh is one of the first shows of genuine emotion Coley sees of her, unobscured by the mask of who Sonya tries to be around others. When Sonya falls ill from drinking, she is kind and apologetic to Coley, rather than snippy - indirectly suggesting Coley head home, rather than instructing her. The movie's take on the scene offers a bit of foreshadowing - Sonya is not as invested in Coley, not as anxious to please or impress, perpetually cool and slightly aloof. That characterization suits movie-Sonya to a T; but novel-Sonya is done a disservice by this portrayal.
Novel-Sonya is cool as a defense mechanism; aloof as a way of playing coy. Her journal entries peel away layers of her masks and lay bare how sincere and eager her interest is in Coley. How she listens to Coley - not just to what she says, but how she says it - and files it away, connecting the dots, all in the pursuit of learning more about the girl that maybe-possibly gives her butterflies sometimes. Novel-Sonya is likeable to more than just Coley and Trenton - she endears herself to the reader. She has a personality beyond "the protagonist's love interest", buried in her subtle references to "Moulin Rouge" and her backhanded jabs about how "lucky" she is that her parents divorced.
At a party, Coley spends some time talking to a former dance rival of Sonya's, named Faith. Faith, now in college, sees cleanly through the layers of awkwardness surrounding Coley and Sonya's interactions, and cautions Coley that Trenton can be terrifyingly cruel. When Coley finds Sonya later, hidden outside the party and fumbling for a cigarette, Sonya is jealous - an emotion she entirely lacks in the movie. She leans in, whispering to Coley that she ought to be careful, since Faith was "really close with a cheerleader when she graduated" - and Coley is stunned, thrown off-guard by how Sonya treats Faith's sexuality like a dirty little secret. It adds a layer of very human realism to the story, in how sexuality was something to be obscured and concealed, a reminder to the reader that being confidently "out and proud" was a foreign concept. They end up running from the police when the party is busted - another act that perhaps makes this novel feel even more like a product of its time - and Trenton shows his true colors a bit more, calling Sonya a bitch and overeager to drive them home despite being incredibly drunk.
None of this exists in the movie. There is no Faith, no gentle allusion to the homophobia of smalltown rural anywhere, no hinting depictions of Trenton's cruelty foreshadowing what is to come. Hell, there's no running from the cops at a party nor even a cigarette to be seen. The intimacy that follows their escape - lathering each other in poison oak cream after a poorly-chosen hiding place, a nerve-wracking sleepover that sends Coley into a sexuality-centered spiral, Sonya's giddiness over how well she sleeps at Coley's side, Coley coming home and masturbating in Sonya's gifted pajamas - is cut as well, its only remnant in a musically-backed series of brief clips of their time spent together that shows them lying next to each other in Sonya's bed in pajamas.
Coley's shock at how easily Sonya talks with her father, her inner doubts about whether this can be her future - a future with a girlfriend - is gone as well. Not once does movie-Coley show even a flicker of doubt towards her sexuality, only ever towards whether Sonya reciprocates her feelings. If there is any single omission that is resoundingly detrimental, it is in revoking Coley's right to self-doubt - not only does it harm the story, but it harms the countless queer youth that will struggle to resonate with the story as well. The ghost of representation, obfuscated in cozy-feel-good falsehood, only serves the repressors - not the repressed.
As they dance along the railroad tracks, novel-Coley says aloud what movie-Coley was too afraid to: "[my mother] killed herself." Movie-Coley is all too eager to dance around the subject, posing as a new potential competition rival for Sonya as she twirls and leaps around any acknowledgement of any serious subject matter at all. Their subsequent making-out conveys a sense of holiness, an ethereal glow painting the words used to describe it, making Sonya's next actions feel far harsher than the movie portrayed. When she wakes from her nap next to Coley, she flees - contacting her the next day after a LiveJournal post about how lovely her girls' night with her other friends had been. Novel-Coley bites back at Sonya's half-assed message, showing a sense of self-respect Movie-Coley also sacrificed.
The ensuing awkwardness in the novel is infinitely crueler than the movie dares to be. Coley attends a party after one of Sonya's friends invites her, and struggles to be in Sonya's presence considering their recent distance. Their intense moment in the bedroom plays out differently as well - while the film shows Sonya as more eager to be intimate with Coley, the novel frames Sonya more vulnerably, having a breakdown about her sexuality that is interrupted by Brooke and Trenton. Trenton misconstrues Sonya's tears as the result of something Coley did, and yanks her away. Coley runs after Sonya, walking in on her tangled around Trenton - rather than witnessing it through a window - but still kisses Alex all the same. The novel lingers on this kiss indulgently, dissecting it through Coley's eyes as she is forced to accept she is not attracted to men, breaking away from the kiss with a sob. Alex responds with kindness and reassurance, offering a ride home - just in time for Trenton to stumble outside with the rest of the friend group, shouting out to ask "You fucking dykes now, Alex?"
Another scene that, of course, the movie lacked the guts or self-assuredness to include.
Coley is forced to return to Sonya's to retrieve her jacket in both iterations of the story as well, though the novel sharpens the cruelty in their exchange - and softens Coley's demeanor towards her father, building their closeness proactively rather than responsively. When Coley slides into a depression, her father's behavior suddenly makes sense - approaching her with photos of her mother, encouraging her to talk to him if she's feeling the same way her mother did. In the film, this approach feels absurd and cruel, but the novel takes the time to build to it, to explain how Coley's mother struggled with bipolar disorder and how Coley's behavior the last few weeks is reminiscent of the same mania and depression. While both pieces of media refuse to call it "bipolar disorder", the novel at least gives the context for it - the movie only presents her father as a bumbling, out-of-touch idiot who means well.
Sonya's diary entries are more present towards the end of the novel. The most notable inclusion (aside from her hemming and hawing over her feelings towards Coley) is her rationale for hating Faith so emphatically. Faith's parents separated when she came out - her father took her side, her mother did not - and Sonya is jealous that Faith was able to come out. That despite the risks and her parents separating, Faith mattered enough to someone to be herself. She catches Faith making out with another girl one night, and her writing shifts - the jealousy remains, but it's more measured, more envious. "Is that what Coley and I looked like that day by the railroad tracks? Soft and so happy it's like you're full of light?" Faith approaches her, later, and cautions her that she had forgotten to sign out of her online diary in the camp computer lab. Assures her it's normal to struggle with self-loathing before coming out. Sonya's rage and fear swells off the page, rearing its head back in an all-too-familiar way like the monsters in my own closet once did.
None of this is in the movie either.
I could continue to parse the last few chapters, to emphasize how miserably flat the film is in every facet by comparison, but frankly - if that point hasn't been made yet, it won't be.
There is one final betrayal, buried in the last breaths of the novel, that the film was too chicken-shit to face. The film closes out with Sonya and Coley resting against each other beside the pool - an open-ended ending, with the post-credits scene suggesting they do end up together, at least for some time. The novel, on the other hand, has the confidence to dot its I's and cross its T's. As the girls rest against each other, moments from a kiss, Coley is violently assaulted by Trenton. As she fades in and out of consciousness, she sees Trenton attack Sonya, and rather than a concussion, she sees red. She beats him, violently, stopping only when Alex lifts her off of him - realizing only when she sees the audience on the patio. Coley tells Trenton "you put your hands on Sonya again, and I'll do worse," and Trenton is left with only Brooke at his side. She goes to leave the party and Sonya chases after her - crashing into her, confessing her love, resolving to be with her. Gone is the empty, ambiguous ending of the film. In its place, there is love. Love in the face of adversity, love in spite of the pain and self-doubt.
The novel is everything the film should have been, but Kiyoko was too afraid to create. The film will stand, as a product of its time - a product of the era of false hope, naivety, and media pandering. And we will all suffer for it.