Love Stories: On Books, Film and Enduring Female Friendships

By Emma Barnes-Wetere (Ngāti Maniapoto, Tainui)

It’s so confusing sometimes, to be a girl. If my 20s have taught me anything so far, it's that love  is my friends. Or, as Dolly Alderton writes, “Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt  from my long-term friendships with women.” Through books and film, I want to explore how  these bonds have been celebrated across time and culture. Stories matter because, to quote Anaïs  Nin, “we write to taste life twice.” And at our core, I believe stories are all that we are. So, let me  begin with two of mine. 

In our all-girls flat, there’s an electric blue wig tucked away in the towel cupboard. We call her  the “menty b wig.” The rule is simple: if you're spiralling, you put it on. Tears, breakdowns,  existential dread - all happen under a party wig that makes you look like Joy from Inside Out.  You get our full attention, but you also get perspective. The absurdity makes everything feel a  little lighter. We always end up laughing. 

Other times, some feelings need more than a wig. Last summer, we wrote out all our rage onto  cheap ceramic plates. No one asked what the others had written - not out of secrecy, but understanding. We drove to our go-to spot and, one by one, smashed our plates to pieces.  Screaming was mandatory. To an outsider, we probably looked unhinged. But that’s the point. I  loathe when films show women suffering silently, a single elegant tear rolling down her cheek. That’s not real. We get MAD. Afterwards, we felt lighter, louder, and freer. We went home and ate pavlova. 

Our friends are the truest loves of our lives - but we forget to tell them. So, this is my love letter. Reader, welcome to your syllabus on female friendship. 

Our Secret Language

I love having friends who can switch effortlessly between offering sound advice and fully  entertaining my delulu logic, depending on the day. Female friendship has a secret language  developed through shared experiences and unspoken understanding. Like when someone  assumes I’m smiling at my phone because of a boy - but really, it’s just me and my besties, because to each other we’re the funniest people on earth. 

You see it in Lena Dunham’s Girls, when Hannah, after a thoroughly shit day - diagnosed with  HPV and discovering her ex is gay - just types: “All adventurous women do.” It’s strange, it’s  oddly poetic, and somehow, it’s exactly enough. Later, when she dances with her best friend  Marnie to “Dancing On My Own,” there’s no dramatic speech or resolution - just them, moving  through life together. That’s the language too. 

Another joy: the debrief is often even more eventful than the event itself. Coffee catch-ups which  start with “nothing new,” evolve into jaw-dropping, earth-shattering, cinematic storylines. It’s us  psychoanalysing someone 0.5 seconds after saying “GAF!” And don’t tell us to “stop gossiping  so much!” God forbid we spread awareness! 

Girlhood to Womanhood 

Long before HBO and indie films captured the magic of girlhood, Louisa May Alcott already  knew its power. Little Women made the ordinary lives of girls feel epic - just by taking them  seriously. Alcott reminds us that growing up doesn’t mean growing out of bravery, ambition, or  wildness. 

Alcott didn’t get to choose Jo’s ending - but we can choose ours. As Erin says in Derry Girls, “There's a part of me that doesn't really want to grow up. I'm not sure I'm ready for it. I'm not  sure I'm ready for the world. But things can't stay the same, and they shouldn't. No matter how  scary it is, we have to move on, and we have to grow up, because things... well, they might just 

change for the better. So we have to be brave. And if our dreams get broken along the way... we  have to make new ones from the pieces.” 

Seeing and Being Seen 

Jane Austen got it, too. In Northanger Abbey she wrote, "There is nothing I would not do for  those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature."  That’s what it means to show up. It’s going to town when you’re absolutely shattered and  dancing with a random so your bestie can meet up with her Hinge date – I think Austen would  approve. 

Frances Ha, co-written by Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, gorgeously captures the intimacy  of female friendship. The opening shows Frances and her best friend Sophie play-fight, run  through New York, cook dinner, smoke, read to each other, and fall asleep in the same bed - everyday moments that shine with the kind of closeness often reserved for romance. 

Though Frances jokes about being "undateable", she's not chasing a boyfriend - she craves  genuine connection. At a dinner party, she articulates this yearning: “It's that thing when you're  with someone... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... not because you're  possessive, or it's precisely sexual, but because that is your person in this life... it's this secret  world that exists right there in public, unnoticed... That's what I want out of a relationship. Or  just life, I guess.” At the end of the film, Frances looks across the room and meets Sophie’s gaze.  

I think back to beach days that stretched on forever, playing mermaids in the shallows, lying on  the field at lunch with the sun kissing our skin, and late summer river swims. We giggled  through volleyball tournaments, memorised every line of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging,  and ruined Māia’s mum’s iron by imprinting the Adidas logo onto it during our “brands phase”  (sorry, Lisa). Our biggest concerns? Tanning progress, weekend trips to Supré, and what to read 

next. Sleepovers became road trips. Then festivals. Then passport stamps and hostel dorms. Still,  all these years later, our secret world remains intact. 

Toni Morrison beautifully expresses this same recognition in Beloved: "She is a friend of my  mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the  right order." This is the essence of being truly seen by another person. We weren’t meant to be  nonchalant. Womanhood is everyone in the ladies' room knowing your life story in two minutes. It’s us explaining our chaotic lore to the Uber driver because we chronically cannot STFU. 

Sorrow and Bliss 

Perhaps female friendships reach profound depths because of the shared pain women often carry.  In Fleabag, Belinda observes, “Women are born with pain built in. It’s our physical destiny:  period pains, sore boobs, childbirth, you know. We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives, men don’t. They have to seek it out, they invent all these gods and demons and things just  so they can feel guilty about things, which is something we do very well on our own. And then  they create wars so they can feel things and touch each other and when there aren’t any wars they  can play rugby. We have it all going on in here, inside.” 

Speaking of rugby: love is lying to your friend’s boyfriend and saying you watched his whole  game - when really, you watched the wrong one and didn’t realise until after halftime, when you  turned to her and said, “I know he’s your boyfriend so I’m probably wrong, but I swear I haven’t  seen him once.” Love is chiming in with a bold opinion about the ref when he asks your friend  what she thought. We support women’s rights - and women’s wrongs.

And of course, meaningful friendship isn’t gender exclusive. We see this in Derry Girls when  James Maguire declares “I AM A DERRY GIRL!” - as being one is a “fucking state of mind.” I  hope my inner monologue is always four girls from Derry and a wee English fella. 

Love Without End 

I know real love exists because even through my most harrowing heartbreaks, love was all  around me. It’s being told: “You handled that really well,” when I didn’t - my besties did - they watched me crash out approximately 108 times. 

This extends to the friends I grew up with whom I now rarely see. We never console ourselves  with false promises that nothing will change. We understand, as Alderton observed, “Everything  will change. The love we have for each other stays the same, but the format, the tone, the  regularity and the intimacy of our friendship will change forever.” Long-distance friendships are  precious because they don't happen by convenience - they require strength. As Hot Priest  reminds us in Fleabag, “love isn’t something that weak people do,” - amen, Father.  

Virginia Woolf wrote, “I would never re-write you. You are by far my most complete and  greatest novel.” That’s how I feel about my friends. In Fleabag, Claire tells her sister, "The only  person I'd run through an airport for is you." I'd run through an airport for you guys, you know  who you are. If you're looking for romance, you might not realise you're already surrounded by  an abundance of meaningful love. It won't give you butterflies, but this love helps you laugh  through terrible days and knows exactly when to show up with flowers and a hug. Cherish these  friendships. Hold on to them for as long as you can.