Most critics are warm on Girls Like Girls, and the praise gathers in two places. The first is the young leads, whose chemistry is remarked on in nearly every review; The Wrap singles out Maya da Costa’s performance as Coley as the film’s breakout. The second is Kiyoko’s handling of first love, which the reviews find tender and unforced, treating the heroine’s queerness as a given rather than a problem to be solved. The mid-2000s setting and its period detail also draw approval.
The reservations are about weight rather than warmth. Several reviews find the film conventional, its stakes muted and some passages undercooked; Vulture thinks it darker than expected but lets itself off with an easy happy ending. The spread is wide because of one outlier: The Guardian dismisses it as precious and predictable, with groan-inducing dialogue, though even there the leads’ chemistry is allowed to survive. The New York Times, gentler, notes that some of the source novel’s verve is lost.