Hayley Kiyoko Releases 'Girls Like Girls' Film in 2 Markets as Critics Fault Its Politics
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jun 18
Hayley Kiyoko Releases 'Girls Like Girls' Film in 2 Markets as Critics Fault Its Politics
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jun 18
Summary
Hayley Kiyoko’s directorial debut "Girls Like Girls" opened in US cinemas and on VOD in Australia on June 19, with a UK date still unannounced.
163 million YouTube views for the 2015 music video and a 2023 novel that became a New York Times No. 1 bestseller helped turn the project into a feature film.
The film, set in 2006 Oregon, follows two teenage girls’ romance and leans heavily on nostalgic cues—iPod Classic, AIM and Tegan and Sara—to recreate the era.
Reviewers said Kiyoko’s focus on queer visibility and representation outweighed plot, realism and politics, praising the leads’ chemistry but calling the script rote and emotionally unearned.
The release extends Kiyoko’s decade-long influence on sapphic pop culture, even as queer representation in mainstream music has become far more common since 2015.