CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 6-19-26

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My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review four new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, June 19th, 2026.

1) TOY STORY 5

It's hard for me to believe that the Toy Story universe has been around for more than thirty years. Thirty years. The original Toy Story opened in November of 1995, and just typing that sentence makes me feel ancient.

I remember seeing that movie and being absolutely blown away by it. Everybody was. It wasn't just the first fully computer-animated feature film; it wasn't just a technological breakthrough. It was a great movie. It had heart, humor, imagination, and wonderful characters.

It told a story that worked for adults and kids equally well, and it launched what would become not only one of the greatest animated franchises ever made, but one of the most consistently excellent franchises in movie history.

Now here we are in 2026 with Toy Story 5, and somehow, impossibly, against all odds, it's one of the best movies in the series. I know that's a big statement, and trust me, I don't make it lightly. There are people who thought the story should have ended with Toy Story 3. I completely understand that perspective.

Toy Story 3 is extraordinary. It's emotionally devastating, beautiful, and one of Pixar's masterpieces. It's one of the great endings in animation history. Then came Toy Story 4, which divided some people.

I happen to think Toy Story 4 is terrific. I always have. I thought it justified its existence and found new emotional territory for Woody and the gang. But even I wondered whether there was really another story left to tell.

Well, there was. And Andrew Stanton found it.

Now look, Andrew Stanton is one of the great storytellers in animation history. Period. This is the guy who co-wrote the original Toy Story. This is the guy who gave us Finding Nemo. This is the guy who directed Wall-E, which, as anybody who has listened to me for more than five minutes knows, is my favorite Pixar movie of all time.

Not only do I think Wall-E is the best Pixar movie, I think it's one of the greatest animated films ever made. It's funny, haunting, romantic, beautiful, heartbreaking, and visionary all at the same time.

So when I heard Stanton was directing Toy Story 5, I got excited. After seeing it, I can tell you that excitement was absolutely justified. One of the reasons this movie works so well is because it actually has something important to say.

The story picks up several years after Woody left Bonnie and rode off with Bo Peep at the end of Toy Story 4. Jessie has become the leader of Bonnie's room, with Buzz serving as her trusted second-in-command. The gang is still together. Rex, Hamm, Slinky Dog, the Potato Heads, Trixie, Forky, and all the familiar faces are back. But Bonnie has changed. She's eight years old now, and Bonnie has discovered screens.

Specifically, she's discovered Lilypad, a frog-shaped tablet toy voiced wonderfully by Greta Lee. At first, Lilypad seems helpful. She helps Bonnie connect with kids, communicate more easily, and find her place socially. But then something starts to happen.

Bonnie stops playing with her toys. That's where Toy Story 5 becomes something really special because this movie isn't really about toys versus technology. It's about imagination versus passivity. It's about connection versus isolation. It's about what happens when kids stop creating stories and start consuming content.

And man, is that timely.

Look around. Kids aren't the only ones addicted to screens. Adults are too. Everybody is. We're all staring down at our phones. We're scrolling, texting, watching videos, checking social media, refreshing feeds, and living through screens.

There are moments in this movie where the toys look out across the neighborhood at night and all they see are these glowing rectangles in every house. People sitting motionless, staring into screens. It's funny, it's a little unsettling, and it's absolutely true.

The genius of Toy Story 5 is that it takes a very real modern problem and filters it through the emotional lens that has always made these movies work. Because at their core, the Toy Story films have never really been about toys.

They're about childhood. They're about growing up. They're about the relationship between children and imagination. They're about what we gain and what we lose as we get older. This movie tackles those ideas beautifully.

The emotional center belongs to Jessie. Joan Cusack has always been one of the secret weapons of this franchise, and she gets her chance to shine here. This is really Jessie's movie. Woody is still around, and Tom Hanks is terrific as always, but he's become more of a supporting player now. There's even a running joke about Woody getting older and developing a bald spot, which got some big laughs.

But Jessie is the heart of the film. Her memories of Emily, her original owner, still haunt her, and her fear of being abandoned again drives much of the story. When circumstances send Jessie and Bullseye on an unexpected adventure to Emily's old house, the movie finds some incredibly moving emotional territory.

There's a scene involving a tree and a tire swing that absolutely wrecked me. Every single Toy Story movie has made me cry, and this one did too. It wasn't cheap manipulation. It was earned. That's the thing Pixar still does better than almost anybody. These characters may be toys, but they feel more human than most live-action movie characters.

The new characters are terrific. Greta Lee is wonderful as Lilypad, who starts out feeling like the villain but gradually becomes much more complicated than that. Conan O'Brien nearly steals the entire movie as Smarty Pants, a potty-training tech toy who is one of the funniest characters Pixar has introduced in years. I was laughing every time he showed up.

And yes, there are poop jokes. Lots of poop jokes. This is actually the first Toy Story movie to receive a PG rating instead of a G rating, and you can see why. The scatological humor is pushed further than usual, but honestly it works because Conan O'Brien commits completely to the insanity.

Then you've got Atlas, voiced by Craig Robinson, a GPS-themed hippo toy who's hilarious, and Snappy, a camera toy who records everything. What I love about these characters is that they represent technology from twenty years ago. That's another smart touch.

The movie recognizes that even technology becomes obsolete. It's not just cowboy dolls and dinosaurs getting left behind anymore. The tech toys are getting left behind too. The gadgets that seemed cutting-edge in 2005 are now sitting forgotten in drawers. That's funny, but it's also a little sad and very true.

The interactions between Jessie and the older tech toys provide some of the movie's biggest laughs while also reinforcing its central themes.

The Buzz Lightyear subplot is fantastic. The movie opens with dozens of factory-default Buzz Lightyears awakening at the same time, and the resulting chaos is some of the funniest and most exciting material in the entire film.

The sequence involving the rogue Buzzes organizing themselves into a mission and causing widespread mayhem had me laughing out loud. It's classic Pixar: fast-paced, inventive, beautifully animated, and genuinely funny.

Speaking of animation, this movie is stunning. Absolutely stunning. Pixar continues to operate on a level that most animation studios can only dream about. Every frame is packed with life, texture, detail, and color.

The lighting is remarkable, the environments are gorgeous, and the movement of the characters is flawless. This is state-of-the-art animation from artists who remain the very best in the business.

The climax is thrilling. The giant chase sequence involving the Buzz drones is funny, emotional, exciting, and beautifully staged. Everything comes together perfectly. The action works, the comedy works, and the emotional beats land exactly the way they're supposed to.

Most importantly, the movie arrives at a conclusion that feels hopeful without being naïve. The message isn't that technology is evil. That's never the point. The point is balance.

Technology can help people connect, but it can't replace imagination. It can't replace friendship. It can't replace storytelling. It can't replace genuine human connection.

At some point you have to put down the screen and actually engage with the world. That's what this movie is saying, and it's saying it at exactly the right time.

One of the things I admire most about Toy Story 5 is that it trusts kids to understand that message while also giving adults plenty to think about. Families are going to have conversations after this movie.

Kids are going to ask questions. Parents are going to ask questions. And honestly, if a movie inspires a few children to put down their tablets for an hour and go make up stories with their toys, that's not a bad thing at all.

By the time the movie ended, I was emotional, I was smiling, and then Randy Newman's score gave way to a brand-new Taylor Swift song over the end credits. And somehow that worked too. I walked out of the theater thinking the same thing I thought after the original Toy Story all those years ago: these movies matter.

They entertain us, they move us, they make us laugh, and every once in a while they remind us of something important that we've forgotten.

Thirty years after Woody first looked at Buzz and said, "You are a toy," this franchise is still finding new things to say. That shouldn't be possible, and yet here we are.

Toy Story 5 is one of the best films of the year, one of the best Pixar movies ever made, and yes, one of the very best entries in the entire Toy Story series.

It's timely, emotional, funny, exciting, beautifully made, and surprisingly important. What a remarkable achievement, and what a wonderful reminder of why we fell in love with these characters in the first place. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

2) THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD

Over the past few years, Michael Sarnoski has quietly become one of the most fascinating filmmakers working today. What's remarkable is that he's only three movies into his career.

His debut, Pig, remains one of the great surprises of the decade, a film that looked like it was going to be a revenge thriller starring Nicolas Cage and turned out to be something far more thoughtful, moving, and profound.

Then he followed that with A Quiet Place: Day One, which managed the nearly impossible feat of taking a franchise concept and making it feel deeply personal and emotionally resonant. Both films displayed the kind of confidence and maturity you'd expect from a filmmaker with twenty years of experience, not someone making only his first and second features.

Now comes The Death of Robin Hood, and somehow Sarnoski has topped himself. This is his best film yet, and that's saying something. It's a movie that takes one of the most famous legends in history and completely deconstructs it.

It strips away the folklore, the mythology, the romanticism, and the adventure, and asks a very simple but devastating question: What if Robin Hood wasn't the hero we've been told he was? What if the stories got it wrong? Or more specifically, what if the stories became so exaggerated and distorted over centuries of retelling that they completely buried the truth?

That's really what this movie is about. It's about identity. It's about mythology. It's about the stories we tell ourselves and the stories that get passed down from generation to generation until they become accepted as truth.

And it's about what happens when a man who has spent his entire life living inside a legend is finally forced to confront who he really is.

Hugh Jackman gives one of the best performances of his career as Robin Hood, and it's certainly one of the best performances I've seen this year.

Forget every version of Robin Hood you've ever seen before. Forget Errol Flynn swinging through the trees with a smile on his face. Forget Kevin Costner. Forget Disney's fox. Forget the cheerful outlaw surrounded by Merry Men, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. There is nothing merry about this movie.

This Robin Hood is old. He's exhausted. He's haunted. He's a pariah. He's a thief. He's a murderer. He has spent decades leaving bodies behind him, and the movie forces him to confront the reality that the people he robbed and killed weren't simply faceless villains. They had families. They had children. They had lives.

The film opens with a sequence so brutal that I was genuinely taken aback by it. Sarnoski doesn't ease you into this world. He drops you directly into bloodshed. There's an extraordinary amount of violence in the opening scenes, and it's ugly violence. It's chaotic, terrifying, and deeply unsettling.

One of the first things we see is Robin being confronted by a young girl seeking revenge, and the encounter ends in shocking fashion. Throughout those opening moments, Robin repeatedly denies his identity, insisting he isn't Robin Hood, and that denial becomes one of the film's central themes.

The violence continues through an enormous battle sequence involving fire, blood, beheadings, and savage brutality. It's overwhelming by design. Sarnoski wants you to feel the weight of violence before he begins examining its consequences. This isn't violence as entertainment. This is violence as trauma, violence as regret, violence as something that leaves scars on everyone it touches.

Following that attack, Robin is left gravely wounded and eventually finds refuge at a remote priory. It's there that the movie shifts gears and becomes something far more contemplative.

Sister Brigid, played magnificently by Jodie Comer, nurses him back to health. Robin spends his days recovering, tending trees, hunting small game, and slowly rebuilding his strength. The pace slows dramatically, but the movie never loses its grip. If anything, it becomes even more compelling.

One of the things I admired most about the film is its patience. Sarnoski isn't interested in rushing through plot points. He allows scenes to breathe. He trusts silence. He trusts his actors. There are moments in this movie where a glance between two characters communicates more than pages of dialogue ever could.

The relationship between Robin and Brigid is the emotional center of the film, and it's handled beautifully. Both characters are struggling with questions of identity. Both have spent years denying parts of themselves. Both are trapped by expectations, histories, and roles they've been forced to play.

There are scenes between Jackman and Comer that are absolutely riveting, and many of them don't involve much dialogue at all. There's one remarkable sequence where Robin quietly observes Brigid from a distance, and the scene is so loaded with longing, regret, curiosity, and emotional complexity that it tells you everything you need to know about these two people without a word being spoken.

Jodie Comer continues to prove that she's one of the finest actors working today. She's extraordinary here. Murray Bartlett is terrific as the Leper, bringing warmth, humor, and sadness to the role.

Noah Jupe is excellent as a young man whose connection to Robin's past becomes increasingly important as the story unfolds. Faith Delaney is wonderful as young Margaret, whose presence provides some of the movie's most moving moments. Honestly, there isn't a weak performance anywhere in the cast.

Visually, this movie is breathtaking. It's one of the most beautifully photographed films I've seen this year. Every frame feels carefully composed. The landscapes are stunning. The use of natural light is extraordinary. The score is haunting and gorgeous.

Together, the cinematography and music create an atmosphere that's almost dreamlike. The movie feels heavy with history, heavy with regret, heavy with secrets. There's a constant sense of unease hanging over everything, but it's also incredibly beautiful to look at.

As the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that the people in this isolated community know far more about Robin than he's willing to admit. The tension builds slowly but relentlessly.

The audience is waiting for the truth to come out. Robin is waiting for the truth to come out. The other characters are waiting for the truth to come out. When those revelations finally arrive, they're both inevitable and devastating.

What makes the movie so powerful is that it never stops interrogating the idea of mythmaking. Robin Hood has become a story. He's become a symbol. He's become folklore. But the actual man underneath that folklore is something much darker and far more complicated.

The title, The Death of Robin Hood, isn't simply referring to the death of a person. It's referring to the death of an idea. It's the death of the legend itself. It's the destruction of the comforting fairy tale we've all accepted for centuries.

What remains is a flawed human being forced to confront the consequences of his actions.

The movie is ultimately about regret. It's about accountability. It's about forgiveness. It's about understanding who you really are when all the stories and excuses and myths are stripped away.

That's why the ending hit me as hard as it did. By the time the film reaches its final scenes, it becomes something profoundly moving. I was genuinely emotional during the conclusion. The last sequence brought tears to my eyes, and it earned every bit of that emotion.

What's especially impressive is how Sarnoski balances the film's darkness with its beauty. This is a very heavy movie. It's often bleak. It's filled with sadness and reflection. But it's never oppressive.

The beauty of the filmmaking keeps pulling you forward. The humanity of the performances keeps you invested. The questions the film asks are fascinating enough that you find yourself thinking about them long after the credits roll.

And believe me, this is a movie that sticks with you.

I've been thinking about it ever since I saw it. I've replayed scenes in my head. I've thought about its themes. I've thought about its ending. I've thought about what it's saying regarding history, storytelling, violence, and redemption.

Frankly, I think this is a movie that probably deserves multiple viewings because there's so much happening beneath the surface.

This is unlike any Robin Hood movie ever made, and that's exactly the point. It's darker, more introspective, more philosophical, and more emotionally complex than any previous interpretation of the character.

Yet somehow, despite completely dismantling the traditional mythology, it ends up becoming one of the most insightful commentaries on Robin Hood ever put on film.

It's challenging. It's beautiful. It's violent. It's deeply moving. It's filled with ideas. It's technically masterful. And it further confirms what I've suspected since Pig: Michael Sarnoski is one of the best filmmakers working today.

The Death of Robin Hood is one of the year's biggest surprises, one of the year's best films, and the kind of movie that reminds you why great filmmaking matters. It's a film that gives you plenty to think about, plenty to feel, and plenty to discuss afterward. I can't wait to see it again.

That's about the highest compliment I can give it. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

3) LEVITICUS

Leviticus, the new Australian supernatural horror film written and directed by Adrian Chiarella, is one of those horror movies that sneaks up on you. It’s creepy, it’s moody, it’s tense, it has a couple of really strong scares, but more importantly it actually has something on its mind.

Imagine that. A horror movie with atmosphere, emotion, ideas, and characters you actually care about. What a concept.

And this is Chiarella’s feature directorial debut, which makes it even more impressive, because this doesn’t feel like some tentative first movie where the filmmaker is trying to figure out where to put the camera or how to build a mood.

This thing is assured. It’s confident. It knows exactly what it’s doing. It’s a horror film, yes, but it’s also a very moving and very angry movie about homophobia, religious trauma, queer shame, and the way communities can absolutely destroy young people while convincing themselves they’re saving them.

The story centers on Naim, played by Joe Bird, who moves with his deeply religious mother, Arlene, played by Mia Wasikowska, to this bleak, isolated industrial town in Victoria, Australia. And right away the movie establishes this feeling of loneliness.

This place looks cold. It feels cold. Empty roads, churches, dead parking lots, abandoned industrial spaces, that kind of damp, gray, oppressive atmosphere where you feel like nobody is getting out without some serious emotional damage.

Naim is quiet and awkward and very clearly uncomfortable in his own skin, and then he meets Ryan, played by Stacy Clausen, who has this slightly mysterious, emo golden-retriever thing going on. The two of them are drawn to each other almost immediately, but the movie doesn’t overdo it.

It doesn’t have them standing around giving speeches about who they are and what they feel. It lets the attraction build through glances, silences, little awkward moments, body language, the stuff that real teenagers actually do when they’re trying to figure out what the hell is happening to them emotionally.

That’s one of the best things about the movie. It lets people act.

Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen are both terrific. Really terrific. Their relationship is tender and nervous and believable, and because the movie takes the time to make that connection feel real, the horror that comes later actually means something.

You care about these two kids. You want them to be left alone. You want them to have one normal moment in this town that seems designed to crush anything soft or vulnerable. Of course, that does not happen.

Their relationship is discovered, and because they live in this deeply religious, fundamentalist community, the reaction is not compassion or understanding or even basic human decency. No, the adults decide that these boys need to be fixed. And that’s when the movie brings in this so-called Deliverance Healer, played by Nicholas Hope, to perform a cleansing ritual.

And let me tell you, this sequence is brutal.

It’s not the usual movie exorcism stuff. Nobody’s head spins around. Nobody levitates over a bed while the priest yells in Latin. This is worse because it feels closer to something real. It feels like conversion therapy turned into a horror set piece.

The boys are restrained. There’s chanting. There’s intimidation. There’s this lighter involved. The whole thing takes place in this dimly lit church, and it is stomach-churning because the scene understands that the scariest people in the world are often the ones who are absolutely convinced they are doing God’s work.

And then, because this is a horror movie, the ritual unleashes something.

The entity in Leviticus is a really smart horror idea. It takes the form of the person you desire most. So, for Naim and Ryan, the monster appears as the person they love. Think about how awful that is. The face that should comfort you becomes the face that might kill you. The person you want to touch becomes the thing you have to fear. Desire itself gets turned into a weapon.

That’s a hell of a metaphor. And it works.

The movie is clearly influenced by something like It Follows, which also used a supernatural creature as a metaphor for sex, guilt, fear, mortality, disease, whatever you want to read into it. And it also has some of the grim, tactile horror of Talk to Me, which Joe Bird was also in.

But Leviticus is very much its own thing because its focus is specific. This is about queer identity. This is about religious shame. This is about the way bigotry gets implanted into your head until you start seeing your own feelings as dangerous.

That’s the really upsetting part of the movie. The demon isn’t just chasing them. The demon is the physical manifestation of what this community has done to them psychologically. The town tells them their love is wrong. The ritual turns that love into a monster.

That’s not subtle, but it’s not heavy-handed either. There’s a difference. The movie has a clear message, but it never stops being a horror movie in order to deliver a lecture. It doesn’t forget to be scary. It doesn’t forget to build tension. It doesn’t forget mood.

There’s a scene on a bus that is one of the best scenes in the movie. Naim is sitting there and Ryan appears, or at least what looks like Ryan appears, and suddenly you’re watching this incredibly tense moment where affection and danger are occupying the same space.

Can Naim trust him? Can he touch him? Can he kiss him? Is this the boy he loves or is it the thing wearing his face?

That’s great horror filmmaking. Simple setup. Huge emotional stakes. No need to overexplain it.

And visually, the movie is really strong. It has this cavernous, bleak look that never lets up. The landscapes are empty and ugly in a very deliberate way. The churches feel oppressive. The industrial spaces feel dead. Even the open areas feel claustrophobic somehow, which is not easy to do.

Mia Wasikowska is excellent as Naim’s mother. It’s a tricky role because she could have been played as a one-note monster, but Wasikowska doesn’t do that. She makes Arlene complicated.

She’s loving in the way that some deeply damaged, deeply misguided parents think love means control. She’s hateful, yes, but she’s not twirling a mustache. She believes she’s helping her son, and that makes the character more disturbing, not less.

That’s one of the things the movie gets right. It understands that cruelty can come dressed up as concern.

And again, the two leads are just wonderful. Joe Bird has this haunted, internal quality that works beautifully here. You can see Naim carrying all of this shame and confusion before the monster even shows up. Stacy Clausen gives Ryan warmth and mystery and sadness.

Together they give the movie its emotional center, and they do a lot of it without big speeches. They use their faces. Their bodies. Their silences. That’s refreshing. I love when a filmmaker trusts actors enough to let them act instead of explaining every damn thing three times.

Now, the movie isn’t perfect. There are a few moments where it gets slightly repetitive. There are a couple of jump scares that probably didn’t need to be there. Once or twice you feel the movie setting up a scare in a way that’s maybe a little too familiar. But those are minor complaints because the overall effect is so strong.

This is one of the better horror films of the year. It’s creepy, it’s thoughtful, it’s beautifully acted, and it has a real emotional aftertaste.

This is not one of those horror movies where you walk out, get to the parking lot, and forget everything you just saw. This one sticks. You’ll talk about it afterward. You’ll think about it afterward. Certain images and moments will stay with you.

And for a first feature, that’s pretty damn remarkable.

Adrian Chiarella has made a horror film with style, brains, heart, and anger. It delivers the scares, but it also has something to say about the way society, religion, and families can turn love into shame and then blame the victim for the damage.

That’s what good horror can do. It can scare you. It can upset you. It can move you.

And every once in a while, it can make you think about the world outside the theater in a way that a hundred serious dramas sometimes can’t.

Leviticus does all of that. It’s a strong, unsettling, beautifully made horror film, and a really impressive debut. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

4) GIRLS LIKE GIRLS

I have to admit right up front that I'm not particularly familiar with Hayley Kiyoko's work. I know who she is, of course. I know she's a singer, songwriter, actress, author, and performer who has built a very devoted following over the years.

She's appeared in movies like Jem and the Holograms and Insidious: Chapter 3, she's been on television, she's released albums, she's toured, and in 2023 she published her first novel, Girls Like Girls, which became a number-one New York Times bestseller in the young adult category.

The book itself was based on her 2015 song of the same name, which also inspired a very popular music video that she co-directed.

Now she's adapted that novel into a feature film, co-writing the screenplay with Stefanie Scott and making her directorial debut. Unfortunately, while I admire the sincerity behind the project and appreciate its point of view, I can't say I was particularly impressed by the result.

The story follows Coley, played by Maya da Costa, a seventeen-year-old girl who moves to a small town in rural Oregon following the death of her mother. She's grieving, isolated, and struggling to adjust to life with her estranged father, Curtis, played by Zach Braff.

They've spent years apart, and now they're suddenly expected to build a relationship while living under the same roof. Coley spends most of her time alone, wandering through this unfamiliar town, avoiding her father, and trying to process a tremendous amount of emotional pain.

Things begin to change when she meets Sonya, played by Myra Molloy. Sonya is popular, outgoing, athletic, and seemingly confident. The two girls form a friendship that gradually develops into something deeper. There is clearly an attraction between them, but they're living in an environment where that attraction is viewed with suspicion and judgment.

Sonya is trapped in a toxic relationship with a homophobic boyfriend, and she's terrified of what embracing her feelings might mean. As their relationship develops, the film explores first love, heartbreak, identity, grief, and the difficulties of navigating a queer relationship in a conservative environment.

And here's the thing. None of that is inherently uninteresting.

In fact, those themes are incredibly important. There are countless great movies that have explored similar territory, and there are still valuable stories to tell about young people discovering who they are and learning how to navigate complicated emotions and relationships.

The problem is that Girls Like Girls never gets beyond the most basic, predictable version of that story.

Everything here feels familiar. Not familiar in a comforting way. Familiar in a "haven't I seen this exact scene ten times before?" kind of way. The movie unfolds like a checklist of young adult coming-of-age tropes.

There's the lonely new kid. There's the popular girl with hidden vulnerabilities. There's the disapproving boyfriend. There's the bullying. There's the misunderstanding. There's the emotional breakup. There's the parent-child reconciliation. Scene after scene plays out exactly the way you expect it to.

What makes it frustrating is that the film seems to believe that simply approaching these familiar situations from a queer perspective automatically makes them fresh. It doesn't.

Representation matters, absolutely, but representation alone doesn't make a story more compelling. The characters still need depth. The conflicts still need complexity. The screenplay still needs to surprise us occasionally. This one rarely does.

The relationship between Coley and Sonya is handled sweetly enough, but neither character ever evolves beyond a fairly one-dimensional conception. Their romance is earnest and sincere, but it never feels particularly specific. It feels like a collection of scenes we've seen in dozens of coming-of-age movies before, just arranged in a slightly different order.

The direction doesn't help. Kiyoko's approach is surprisingly heavy-handed. There are so many close-ups in this movie that it becomes distracting. At times it feels like the camera is practically sitting in the actors' laps. Instead of creating intimacy, it often creates a sense of claustrophobia. The film rarely gives its performers enough room to breathe or allows scenes to develop naturally.

I also don't think Kiyoko is particularly strong when it comes to directing actors. A lot of the performances feel unshaped. The actors often seem to be finding their way through scenes on their own, and the emotional beats don't always land the way they're intended to.

The screenplay itself is the bigger problem. The dialogue rarely rises above the level of a standard young adult novel. There are life lessons scattered throughout the movie that feel less like genuine discoveries and more like inspirational quotes waiting to be highlighted on social media. The characters spend a lot of time saying things that sound meaningful without actually revealing much about themselves.

Honestly, the whole movie feels exactly like what it is: a feature-length adaptation of a pop song. And I don't mean that as a compliment.

The screenplay has the same problem many song-based adaptations have. A song can suggest emotions, ideas, and situations. It can create a mood. But stretching those ideas into a full narrative requires depth, complexity, and character development. Girls Like Girls never quite finds those things. It feels like a very thin story expanded beyond its natural limits.

The relationship between Coley and her father is another missed opportunity. Zach Braff is badly miscast here. I kept waiting for the character to become more interesting, and he never does. Braff seems to think that growing a beard, speaking softly, and looking thoughtful is enough to create depth. It isn't.

The character himself doesn't help matters. He's written as the standard absent father trying to reconnect with his daughter after years of emotional distance. We've seen this character countless times before, and the movie doesn't add anything new to the formula.

There's a sequence where father and daughter go through a box of old photographs and memories while discussing Coley's mother. It's clearly intended to be one of the film's major emotional moments, but it never comes alive because everything about it feels so familiar and manufactured.

I also couldn't stop wondering what this guy actually does all day. He's always sitting around the house. He's always available whenever Coley needs a ride. He's always carving little trinkets or making jewelry. None of it is explored. None of it tells us anything meaningful about who he is. He's less a character than a collection of screenplay functions.

That said, the movie does have one major asset. Maya da Costa is really good.

She's easily the best thing in the film and honestly the primary reason the movie remains watchable. She takes material that often feels underwritten and finds genuine emotional truth inside it.

When Coley cries, you believe her. When she's heartbroken, you feel it. When she's confused or lonely or angry, da Costa makes those emotions feel authentic even when the screenplay isn't giving her much help. That's not an easy thing to do.

She's carrying a tremendous amount of this movie on her shoulders, and she succeeds more often than the film itself does. The fact that she's in virtually every scene turns out to be a blessing because her performance consistently elevates material that doesn't deserve her.

Unfortunately, one strong performance can't save a movie that feels this predictable. The further Girls Like Girls goes along, the more it settles into familiar patterns. Every conflict develops exactly as expected. Every emotional beat arrives on schedule. Every lesson is telegraphed long before it arrives.

By the end, I wasn't emotionally invested so much as I was simply waiting for the movie to complete its checklist.

That's disappointing because there's clearly passion behind the project. Kiyoko obviously cares deeply about these characters and these themes. The film comes from a sincere place, and I never doubted its intentions. But good intentions only take you so far.

I can't recommend this movie.

I can recommend Maya da Costa, though. She's terrific, and I'd be very interested in seeing what she does next. She emerges from this movie with her credibility intact and her future looking bright.

As for the film itself, it never becomes much more than what it started as: a feature-length expansion of a four-minute pop song. And unfortunately, that's just not enough. - ⭐️⭐️

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