Once a year, we gays get acknowledged by everyone who doesn’t give a fuck about us during the rest of the year. And while it’s usually a cynical use of our identities, I have to give credit to my cable company for introducing this film into my life, via VOD services in a Pride special. Let’s get right into it.
Dating Amber is set in 1990s southern Ireland. Now, to be honest, I know very little about Irish gays, apart from the whole catholic thing, but I assume that being gay in the 90s was pretty similar all across Europe and the US, so I will be judging by those standards.
The plot focuses on two main characters — Eddie, who’s gay and Amber who’s a lesbian. They both suffer from the traditional conservative environment of their school and homes, and thus come up with a plan to get people off their backs — fake dating each other. Through this ploy they end up becoming close friends, and discovering the gay community together. While Amber is enthusiastic and active, Eddie struggles to even acknowledge his sexuality and basically is a shy confused baby that just isn’t ready for all that. And we surely can see why, considering that in the beginning of the film Amber already had plans to move to London and live freely, Eddie was planning on joining the army and had zero intentions of coming out.*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD* While Amber starts dating a girl, Eddie can barely get through a kiss without panicking over people finding out he’s gay, and considering his circumstances we can wholeheartedly understand that. The plot doesn’t get much more complex as the film goes on, it’s mostly those sexuality struggles and friction between Eddie and Amber, as Eddie get’s a new girlfriend and firmly locks himself in the closet, after Amber officially comes out. The end is interesting — Eddie almost truly enlists, until Amber decides to give him all her savings so he can go to London, while she stays in Ireland with her girlfriend.
Now let’s get into the tea.
I want to start by pointing out the classic casting of Fionn O’shea, who’s absolutely perfect for Eddie’s part, and Lola Petticrew did Amber justice. Having said that, I’m a little torn about the actual characters. Eddie is a stereotypical scrawny gay kid, and Amber is a feminist butch lesbian (and she’s fierce). On one head, it’s definitely been done before a million times, but on the other hand, it feels necessary for them to be a bit cliché to be targeted the way they were. I guess I’ll give them a pass, considering they were truly very typical gay characters that many can relate to, and that’s generally a good thing, even if a bit overdone. It does feel like Amber didn’t really experience much growth, and Eddie was the one to really go through the significant process. I’m not mad about it, considering Amber got a more optimistic plot, and definitely was in a different place as a person, but I think it’s worth mentioning.
When it comes to the plot, I think it was nice, a sort of coming of age, heartwarming storyline that focused more on the platonic relationship than anything else. I love a platonic main theme, and Ambers and Eddie’s relationship was clearly the most important one in the film. I also enjoyed Ambers little romance, and the glimpses we got to her relationship with her mother. However, I’m not sure her coming out was an accurate reflection of reality, as from the little I know about coming out in southern Ireland, it was not a smooth ride, and she didn’t get a convincing amount of shit for it. I would say Eddies side was more realistic, but I didn’t really understand what’s going on with him at times, in terms of his wants motives.
Now we reach the ending, and I have mixed feelings about it for mostly petty reasons. I’ll explain; I don’t think it’s a bad ending, I just think that if we’re going for a feel-good vibe, they should’ve moved to London together, and I also didn’t like Amber having to sacrifice her dream to help Eddie, when he was a dick to her. I see the optimism and kindness and whatever, but I just would’ve preferred they’d just go full out and give us a proper happy ending, because the gays deserve happy endings. Or commit to Eddie being on the realistic side of the story, and have him going to the army and killing my happiness.
My final thoughts are that it’s a cute movie with a great cast, and I definitely enjoyed watching it. All my criticism comes now as I force myself to look at it in a more critical way, but during the actual watching I had a good time. 4/5.
