FLAT GIRLS (แฟลตเกิร์ล ชั้นห่างร�หว่าง เ ร า) (2025)

Genre: Drama
Director: Jirassaya Wongsutin
Cast: Kirana Pipityakorn, Fatima Dechawaleekul, Pakorn Chatborrirak
Runtime: 2 hr 9 mins
Rating: M18 (Some Homosexual Content))
Released By: Golden Village 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 20 March 2025

Synopsis: A coming-of-age story that depicts the love and friendship between two high-school girls, both daughters of police officers. Despite differing financial circumstances, the girls share a close bond. However, their relationship is tested when a young policeman moves into their flat. As the girls navigate the complexities of life, the story delves into the challenges of growing up.

Movie Review:

Long before ‘How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies’ became a runway hit, GDH had been in the business of intimate, sensitive, coming-of-age dramas that have defined their brand over the past two decades.

‘Flat Girls’ is of the same mould, a coming-of-age story of two teenage girls, Ann (Fatima Dechawaleekul) and Jane (Kirana Pipityakorn), whose friendship over the course of the movie will be tested within and beyond. Not only will they have to deal with their feelings for each other, Ann and Jane will also have to contend with their feelings for the same guy, tensions between their mothers due to their respective financial situations, and their own hopes and dreams for their future.

On the surface, ‘Flat Girls’ is therefore exactly what the GDH brand has been built on; but halfway into the movie, you’d realise why this feature film debut by Jirassaya Wongsutin has struggled to find the same success as other GDH classics. Unlike its predecessors, ‘Flat Girls’ lacks focus, does not know what it eventually wants its audience to go away with, and comes off hollow and superficial.

That is somewhat a pity, because the first hour is sweetly charming. Over a series of seemingly ordinary day-to-day routines, we observe the dynamics between Ann and Jane – during their badminton sessions, Jane offers Ann her badminton racket knowing that Ann’s one is spoilt; during their sleepover at Ann’s place, they take turns putting their eyelashes on top of each other; and together with another close friend Nice (Wachirakon Raksasuwan), they break into a often empty flat to smoke, drink, watch the fireworks and talk about staying together come what may.

At first, it appears that Jane is the one who has more than platonic feelings for Ann, most notably when Jane tells Ann that she does not like her spending time with an older but still strappingly handsome police officer Tong (Pakorn Chatborrirak) who stays in the same apartment complex. However, as Tong shares a couple of one-to-one interactions with Jane, especially after Jane’s mother Nee asks Tong to take Jane exercising, we are also led to believe that Ann feels the same way about Jane.

To her credit, writer-director Wongsutin is perfectly comfortable juggling the ambiguity of Ann and Jane’s feelings for each other – suffice to say that it isn’t one-sided, or entirely reciprocal, which is also part of the appeal and intrigue. That ambiguity also allows Tong to complicate things in interesting ways, not just with Ann and Jane taking turns getting jealous, but also how a misunderstanding sets off a chain of events that will have irreparable ramifications for their friendship.

Unfortunately, these vagaries eventually prove too much for a first-time filmmaker to unpack. Amidst a number of emotional and familial upheavals, it is unclear what is truly bothering Ann, whether the debt-ridden circumstances of her mother Oom or her budding feelings for Tong; ditto for Jane, whether she is dismayed that Ann is settling for Tong or envious that Ann has ostensibly chosen Tong over her. Even more inscrutable is Tong’s motivations - whether he is in love with Ann or giving her money just out of goodwill – as well as his circumstances – in particular why he also needs to borrow money from Nee.

By the time things between Ann and Jane come to a head, you wonder just what the movie is trying to portray in the first place. Is it about how the simplicities of childhood friendship can sometimes inevitably by clouded by the complexities of adolescence and worse adulthood? Or is it about how we are bound by our socio-economic realities, which in turn colour the friendships we have and the futures we desire? And as intentional as it may be, leaving Ann’s fate open-ended ends up being symptomatic of the frustration we feel trying to decipher what the movie is trying to say, no matter how poetic it may have seemed to simply have Ann disappear from it all.

Because the plotting rambles, it is never clear what we are supposed to take away from it all – and that is despite a pair of committed performances from both our female leads. Proving she is a better director than she is a writer, Wongsutin coaxes genuine and heartfelt turns from newcomers Dechawaleekul and Pipityakorn, both of whom do their best to convey the twists and turns in their characters’ emotions. Credit also goes to the strong mise-en-scene, especially that of the police flat community, which brings to life both the simple pleasures and hard truths that Ann and Jane grow into.

We won’t go so far as to call this a misfire, but coming after one of the best examples of what GDH can do, ‘Flat Girls’ is inevitably disappointing. It is still an intimate, sensitive, coming-of-age drama, but there is no real emotional payoff at the end or a satisfying resolution to the growing-up journeys of our titular teenage protagonists. We hate to say this, but ‘Flat Girls’ comes off flat, and it is no wonder that the film hasn’t taken off like the rest of the GDH films have.

Movie Rating:

(What starts off sweetly charming becomes muddied in vagaries that struggles to find meaning, purpose or payoff, so in spite of being from the GDH mould of an intimate, sensitive coming-of-age drama, 'Flat Girls' never quite comes of age)

Review by Gabriel Chong