Dating And Hating - Dating Amber (2020)
It’s not often that I expect to be writing about queer, Irish content, but I guess that’s what I’m doing after watching Dating Amber, viewable now on Amazon Prime. That’s not to say that queer Irish content doesn’t exist; it’s just that…well, we as a country, we’re not always the most vocal about accepting and embracing all things queer, are we?
That’s not to say we won’t embrace such stuff; more that we’re not always the most visual and vocal about doing so.
It’s hard to talk about anything queer in Ireland without looking at the marriage referendum of 2015, which I know I’ve written and spoken about before; I’m still somewhat in awe about the numbers, the statements, the people who made the point of travelling in order to vote for something that may not have affect them directly, but did, and would, affect their friends and their family. The results of the marriage referendum were one of the first times that I truly felt embraced, loved and accepted in Ireland and it was a crazy feeling, if just because, prior to that, there were always these hints and signs that Ireland didn’t (fully) accept all things queer.
As such, the release of a newish wave of movies that is trying to embrace just that: it’s sort of alien, sort of terrifying, and hey, it brings back a lot of old scars. When you look at those scars, not all of them were caused by other people though: some of my own scars, and many of those on other queer Irish people, were caused by ourselves, in that delightful messed-up mess that is Irish culture.
Dating Amber, from Irish director/writer David Freyne, addresses some of those beats of Irish culture, growth and sexualitu in a film that is both heart-breaking and beautiful, somehow in the same beat. Set in the Kildare of 1995 (for the inexperienced, Kildare is a county on the border of Dublin; even from its furthest spots, you could probably get into Dublin city centre within an hour…were it not for the shite traffic), Dating Amber introduces us to Eddie (Fionn O’Shea) and the titular Amber (Lola Petticrew), two somewhat-outsiders in their final year in secondary school (that would be equivalent to a “high-school”; in Ireland, especially during the 90s, secondary schools have uniforms, nuns and priests within the staff, and the school is probably associated with a church in some way.) Like most teenagers, many of Eddie and Amber’s classmates have discovered sex, and Amber is making money out of it, leasing out her family’s camper vans to her fellow students as hook-up spots. But, while their classmates are living their best (straight), teenage lives, both Eddie and Amber are labelled as weird, Other and gay.
I don’t think this is solely an Irish thing, with “gay”, said in a pejorative tone when used to apply to things that aren’t homosexual, queer or, y’know, gay: it’s something I’ve seen and heard used in Ireland forever, that I’ve used myself, and I know that South Park has equally addressed the word, its usage and the meaning behind it. But, in the context of this film, taking place in the Ireland of the mid-90s and coming from the mouths of randy teenagers, the word takes on multiple meanings, many of them at the same time. In attempts to prove the points to their classmates and not to be “gay” in any sense of the word, Eddie and Amber go on a date: when Eddie tries to kiss Amber, she reveals that she is gay, that it is “obvious” that he is too and she is just counting down the time until she can use the money she has been making to move to London where she can be herself. The two agree to pose as a couple in order to stop the weird judgements and to fit in with their classmates, creating an image for their families as they do so, namely Amber’s bereaved mother (following her father’s suicide), Eddie’s somewhat-absent army-working father, his frustrated mother and younger brother.
The internet tells me that the film was originally titled Beards, and such a name would be very appropriate for a lovable teen comedy: the film would be exactly that if not for its challenges to Eddie’s sense of self, both in terms of his sexuality and his career, convincing himself that he will join the army like his father. Those uncertainties linger throughout the film and, because of that very fact, Dating Amber puts Amber herself at the heart of the narrative, leaving Eddie, to the viewer and Amber alike, as a character putting in a lot lot of effort to not be gay.
The film goes out of its way to show such efforts from Eddie as he denies and avoids any truths about his sexuality, even if those truths are painfully obvious to the viewer, or at least the queer viewer. While Amber is fully and wholly aware of her own sexuality, working her way through the film to a flirtation that turns into a relationship and a coming-out conversation with her mother that is genuinely one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever watched, Eddie’s journey is a heart-breaking and difficult watch, with beats of denial and internalised homophobia, that Eddie directs towards both himself and Amber.
Aside from drawing pictures of erect penises in a somewhat immature fashion, Eddie’s sense of the queer is so highly suppressed that it becomes screamingly obvious. When his mother Hannah discovers such drawings, it allows her to put two and two together: it’s a subtly acted and somewhat beautiful scene from actress Sharon Horgan, perhaps most identifiable from Catastrophe.
And yet it is also frustrating as hell as she realises Eddie’s place in the closet: as his mother, both she and the viewer know that it is not her place to bring that up with him, nor to push him to address it. Similarly, Hannah’s relationship with her husband Ian (Barry Ward) is problematic at best and carries through to his status as father. In saying so, Ian and Hannah’s issues are not overly problematic: the film portrays it as a simple narrative of absenteeism, with Ian regularly working away from home. The film subtly omits some beats of their relationship though, somewhat intentionally missing the potential conversations between them both about what they expect and want for and from their children.
Even if Eddie himself is convinced that his parents want him to join the army, the film suggests that this is due to a fierce, brutal father who expects his son to be equally masculine. But the film gives Ian a few beats to suggest that he does not expect that for his son, he just wants him to be happy…he’s just too messed up as a mid-90s father to actually communicate with either of his sons or his wife.
The internet tells me that the film was originally titled Beards, and such a name would be very appropriate for a lovable teen comedy: the film would be exactly that if not for its challenges to Eddie’s sense of self, both in terms of his sexuality and his career, convincing himself that he will join the army like his father. Those uncertainties linger throughout the film and, because of that very fact, Dating Amber puts Amber herself at the heart of the narrative, leaving Eddie, to the viewer and Amber alike, as a character putting in a lot lot of effort to not be gay.
The film goes out of its way to show such efforts from Eddie as he denies and avoids any truths about his sexuality, even if those truths are painfully obvious to the viewer, or at least the queer viewer. While Amber is fully and wholly aware of her own sexuality, working her way through the film to a flirtation that turns into a relationship and a coming-out conversation with her mother that is genuinely one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever watched, Eddie’s journey is a heart-breaking and difficult watch, with beats of denial and internalised homophobia, that Eddie directs towards both himself and Amber.
Aside from drawing pictures of erect penises in a somewhat immature fashion, Eddie’s sense of the queer is so highly suppressed that it becomes screamingly obvious. When his mother Hannah discovers such drawings, it allows her to put two and two together: it’s a subtly acted and somewhat beautiful scene from actress Sharon Horgan, perhaps most identifiable from Catastrophe.
And yet it is also frustrating as hell as she realises Eddie’s place in the closet: as his mother, both she and the viewer know that it is not her place to bring that up with him, nor to push him to address it. Similarly, Hannah’s relationship with her husband Ian (Barry Ward) is problematic at best and carries through to his status as father. In saying so, Ian and Hannah’s issues are not overly problematic: the film portrays it as a simple narrative of absenteeism, with Ian regularly working away from home. The film subtly omits some beats of their relationship though, somewhat intentionally missing the potential conversations between them both about what they expect and want for and from their children.
Even if Eddie himself is convinced that his parents want him to join the army, the film suggests that this is due to a fierce, brutal father who expects his son to be equally masculine. But the film gives Ian a few beats to suggest that he does not expect that for his son, he just wants him to be happy…he’s just too messed up as a mid-90s father to actually communicate with either of his sons or his wife.
Dating Amber says a lot about that silent, Irish mentality, that same silence that made so many of us shocked and stunned when we saw the results of the marriage referendum. It’s a somewhat powerful, and beautiful beat to the film that comes to a close at the end of the school year, a beat wherein the out-and-proud Amber is embraced by her classmates, while Eddie still circles his horrific internalised homophobia, even directing some of that self-loathing towards Amber, It’s a brutal beat for the film, one that (thankfully) the film doesn’t go too out of its way to embrace. But when it does, it hurts like hell to watch.
It hurts so much that, even as the film tries to save Eddie, both for his own sake and for the viewer, I don’t know if I can forgive him: I desperately want to, but he is so broken and messed-up as a character that I find myself overly frustrated by him.
Eddie’s is a narrative that fits in well with the time-frame of the mid-90s, a time before a marriage referendum and any sort of queer representation on our TV screen. But it’s also a narrative that I can see now as to why the film’s quotes its female lead in the title, focusing on a character that can and will deal with her actual issues.
I adored this film though, largely appreciating such a narrative and the story it is telling, although it goes to some very dark places while dressed as a comedy. Eddie doesn’t deal with any of his issues, and as such, the film does not have the happy ending that I was hoping for.
But, let’s be honest, very few queer narratives do. In the film’s closing minutes, Amber gives Eddie the power and the money to finally tell his truths, saying those magic and wholly necessary words out loud. But Dating Amber also allows Eddie to run away from the next level of facing up to those truths, and because of that, maybe he never will.
This is an important narrative within the queer community, one that fits perfectly with the time-frame and location of this movie, but makes for a somewhat frustrating watch.
And yet, while some of that frustration goes towards Eddie, most of it needs to be directed to his parents and the community around him, a community that is so focussed on forcing all things straight into his life that he doesn’t even have the chance to breathe and think about where he belongs.
Let’s be honest, though: that sure does feel suitable for the queer Irish narrative of the mid-90s.
Dating Amber, as a film, is beautifully shot, and it’s a credit to Freyne that it’s one of only a handful of films in which the writing and directing credits being shared by the same individual works well for me. The film feels suitably Irish too, embracing something close to the “real” Ireland that we have also seen in recent years in Moone Boy and Extra-Ordinary.
That is also, unfortunately, something that I can’t un-see in some elements, with actors who have appeared in both of the above having prominent roles in Dating Amber. Similarly, Fionn O’Shea as Eddie is a brilliant character, and the guy is a good actor for some so deep and, ultimately, messed up. But, I can’t help but compare this to his role in the equally Irish and queer-ish Handsome Devil.
I read that as a good thing, though, with both films being somewhat complementary - even if, in doing so, I can’t help but feel that the films might be a bit too similar in some ways.
It certainly doesn’t help that a bunch of us didn’t get to see queer stories like these when we really needed and wanted them, and, for some of us, seeing these stories now might come a bit too late.
That’s right: I’m old, cranky and judging films about teenagers coming out in Ireland in an old and cranky light. But that old, cranky light also makes me hope that there is an audience who will watch Dating Amber and see it without those airs of anger and frustration that I do, that will maybe learn from it or entertained.
But, that said, maybe it’s not meant to be entertaining. Maybe it’s meant to be the powerful film that it is, and that’s exactly why it’s not called Dating Eddie.