Girls Like Girls

Coley is seventeen and has just lost her mother. She moves to a rural part of Oregon to live with her father and knows nobody there. She meets Sonya. Sonya is known in the area, has a group of friends and a boyfriend. The two grow close. For the first time Coley has to name what she feels, and Sonya has difficulty accepting it; she knows what the people around her will say. The narrative runs the tension between the two girls and the bearing of the town together. Hayley Kiyoko directs. Maya da Costa, Myra Molloy, Levon Hawke and Zach Braff are in the cast. It is the director's first feature; Kiyoko was known before as a musician. Its source is her own work: she has a song of the same name and a novel that grew out of it, and the film rests on that story. What the film treats is less a first relationship than grief; the loss of the mother sits underneath the narrative throughout. The rural setting is inside the narrative; what hiding and being seen mean in a small town is shown directly. Music is an important part and carries the emotional turns through the film. Its limit is structure; the narrative follows the known stages of youth films and some supporting characters remain incomplete. Who it is for: viewers who like youth drama and stories of a first relationship. Who it is not for: it is predictable, the emotional register is high, and the subject is familiar.