Erin’s Guide to Kissing Girls

Erin’s Guide to Kissing Girls is the first officially G-rated WLW movie I’ve found. This is great! For decades, queer sexuality has only been present in decidedly adult media. Despite the fact that minors can be, and are queer themselves. The G-rating also means I figured I wouldn’t be the audience for this movie. Which is mostly true. However, some of the aspects of the film spoke pretty heavily to my millennial youth experience. Which is, unfortunately, probably not the ideal vibe for this very Gen-Z film.

The characters in Erin’s Guide to Kissing Girls are in the eighth grade. Erin is already out as a lesbian when the film begins. Erin’s best friend is Liz. The two share a love for a comic book series that officially labels them as uncool nerd girls. Liz is also not straight but the two seem to have a holding pattern of friendship. But Erin wants to kiss a girl. Liz supports this concept in theory. But as ever, reality is messier. Erin develops a crush on new girl, Sydni, a former child actor. She then develops a multi-step plan to kiss the very cool Sydni. And in executing her plan, Erin and Liz’s friendship begins to falter.

This movie is definitely a G-rated take on lesbianism. Attraction to girls here is extremely chaste. The entire premise is about getting a singular kiss. In regards to the film’s depiction of young queer sexuality, the film is likely calibrated so the only people who could object to such gentle content are bigots. However, there is some naughty language in this G-rated film that made me clutch my pearls a bit. Some of the bullying Erin encounters is at once very realistic for a 14 year-old, but not quite G-rated. There’s lots of jokes about Erin being a virgin. The words douchebag and shit are also used. The bad language means maybe you shouldn’t show this film to a six year old. But for actual eighth graders? This movie is fine. They’ve definitely heard worse in their real 14 year-old lives.

The film has several moments which are very relatable to someone who lived through eighth grade. This makes the film at times deeply cringey, but in a successful way. Being 14 is deeply cringey. But these moments also belie that the maker of the film isn’t from the generation she’s writing about. The more the film taps into youth, the more it shows that the filmmaker didn’t experience the youth of this generation. The popular girls in the film look right out of 2004. There’s also a strange lack of social media in the film. Usually I critique films for over-relying on it. But the absence of it in Erin’s Guide to Kissing Girls is equally distracting. The kids are on Tik Tok! They’re filming everything! This really does change the way they interact with the world and each other.

It seems like Erin’s Guide to Kissing Girls is something of a wish fulfillment exercise. There’s a personal aspect to the film in terms of its representation of young queer girls and perhaps, some of its more millennial overtones. Where Erin’s Guide stands out from similar films is its execution of secondary characters. The movies Erin’s Guide reminded me of the most tend to have a very well-realized protagonist but very shallow secondary characters. Trope-heavy supporting roles that never feel like fully realized people. By contrast, Sydni and Liz are really well-realized in Erin’s Guide. They feel like real people with lives and interests outside of Erin’s story. In fact, one of Liz’s issues with Erin is that Erin treats her like a sidekick. The film has good character work and empathy that extends beyond its main character. This makes the film richer overall.

Unfortunately for Erin, her guide to kissing girls isn’t wholly successful. Her plans go awry with Sydni over and over again. And then of course, there’s Liz. Erin and Liz’s relationship is that complicated, messy friendship between two queer people. There’s an unspoken undertone. At the end, they do speak about that undertone. But even here, it’s left ambiguous. Maybe there’s time in the future where they’ll kiss. But in my real-life experience? Erin probably missed her shot. It’s nice that the film ends in a message of friendship and not having to hit romantic milestones so quickly. But I expect Erin and Liz’s relationship to be ever stuck in the ambiguous quagmire of long-term lesbian friendship.

Erin’s Guide to Kissing Girls is aimed at an audience younger than myself. But what a joy that is! To have a lesbian film not marketed towards me, an adult. I’m glad that this film exists and that it was so successful depicting queer youth in such a harmless way. It’s hard to say I fully enjoyed it, though. Like much G-rated content, the film relies heavily on cliche and repetitive story lines. This time they’re queer, which is nice. But I’ve still seen many of these beats before. But for a 12 year old? They haven’t. And they definitely haven’t seen them done in lesbian. And I’m glad for those hypothetical 12 year olds that this movie exists.

Overall rating: 5.8/10

Other WLW films in similar genres