Dating Amber

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING???? You're gay!!"

"........gay...for boobs."

It`must be hard enough to feel out of place in 2020 but think about what it was like in 1995. Before the internet became ubiquitous, before information was at your fingertips. Imagine how hard it must have been to feel all alone and to not know when or if you'd ever feel accepted or find your tribe. Ireland in 1995 may as well have been the 1950's. So near and yet so far away.

If you've seen Sex Education on Netflix, Dating Amber will feel very familiar. Set around a school filled with sex obsessed teens, some coming to terms with their sexuality. A lead who lives in a caravan park. Teens being raised by single mothers, some in houses with troubled marriages, some with fathers in the army. It could have felt derivative and cliched but thankfully a winning central pairing and the chemistry between them keeps everything fresh.

Eddie and Amber aren't enjoying their last year of school. Eddie's gay but can't admit it to himself because he wants to follow in his father's footsteps and join the army. Amber's gay too and she's accepted it but can't tell her mother who's still reeling from her husband's suicide. Both are on the receiving end of a constant barrage of homophobic abuse from fellow pupils no matter how much they deny everything. To make things easier on themselves they come up with a plan to fake a relationship. For a while it really works. Until it doesn't.

I liked this a lot. It's charming, funny, upsetting and it's heart is definitely in the right place. Our country's homophobic "past" aside it touches on the toxicity still at the heart of our culture, a toxicity that drives our people to suicide in droves (Barry Ward's armour fracturing on his couch is a heartbreaker). As long as you don't mind watching a film knowing exactly how it's going to play out you'll enjoy it too. It has an ending I'm glad they went with though, the only one they could really, bittersweet but hopeful. A story like this set in mid 90's Ireland was never going to have a fairytale ending. Homosexuality only became legal in 1993 (how fucked is that?) and the place still seethed with hate. Look back, ignore those rose tinted memories and those scenes that might seen crazy to modern day younger audiences ( that sex ed video, constant use of the word 'faggot', gay bars hidden down little laneways) will come rushing back. Look at those memories if you feel the need to moan about how things play out at the end.

The cast is where it really works. Lola Pettigrew is superb as Amber, way more than the manic pixie dream girl™ the trailers hinted at. Her tough exterior hiding a wealth of pain. There's an early scene, pregnant with emotion, where she sits in the woods looking up at a cut branch and no words are needed, the pain in her eyes saying it all. She wants out of a small minded place that's already ruined her family. Eddie is tortured by the town too but he wants to be there, to belong to the institution he thinks made a man out of his father. He's a frail looking chap and O'Shea sells his fragility brilliantly. He's far more likeable here than in TV's Normal People. Together Amber and Eddie sing and the film does too. Awkward and disgusted kisses, chemically induced moments of clarity, a warm and loving train trip to anonymity. It's in these moments the film really finds it's footing. 

A running thread in Irish films is their ability to make you laugh while licking you in the teeth and Dating Amber continues that trait admirably. Sharon Horgan as Eddie's worried mam might feel a bit underused but she gets the films biggest laugh (on the porch in the dark) and it's most heartfelt moment (her bedside chat near the end) while a brilliantly realised bit of tutting from Eddie's classmate gives us a badly needed giggle near the end of the film. It's a laugh that will make you realise just how invested you've become in Amber and Eddie's story.

Dating Amber is available to stream on Amazon Prime now.