In “Girlfriends,” first-time writer-director Claudia Weill created a compelling depiction of a woman look at a woman growing, awkwardly and not without pain, into her adult life–that is, the life of an independent woman and artist in New York City. This film also offers what is inarguably one of cinema’s most honest and insightful looks at the complex bonds between women, detailing with extraordinary sensitivity (and bits of quirky humor) the shifts, both small and seismic, that occur when one of the halves of a sustaining heterosexual female friendship effectively “leaves” to get married.