Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
In Dating Amber we head back to the mid nineties, and a small town in Ireland that’s not exactly a hotbed of LGBT acceptance, as the nuns teaching sex “education” point out. That’s a problem for schoolkids like Amber (Lola Petticrew), who’s still in the closet but knows that closet is market “lesbian”, and also for Eddie (Fionn O’Shea), who’s not ready to admit to anyone that he’s gay – even himself.
In an effort to head off the playground taunts, Amber suggests that she and Eddie start a fake relationship, although the exact level of he fakeness proves something of a challenge for the confused Eddie, particularly after some trips to the more welcoming big city where Amber finds someone she’d want a real relationship with. The shock of this could have Eddie do something quite silly and continue to deny his sexuality, but thankfully this is an easy going comedy and not a gritty study of depression, so that’s headed off swiftly and we can all head off into a new millennium in harmony.
Well, perhaps not, but even with current headwinds I think we can say society is a little more accepting twenty five years after this is set, although I expect schoolkids remain as horrible to each other now as they do in Dating Amber. Refreshingly, this film shows a fairly realistic, low level of horribleness more or less in line with what I remember my contemporaneous schooling being like, as opposed to the American versions shown on film which often seem more like a particularly harrowing episode of Oz.
Dating Amber is a consistently gently amusing coming of age tale, with likeable, sympathetic performances from Petticrew and O’Shea, and highly capable support from the likes of Sharon Horgan and Barry Ward. It’s only real problem is one that’s barely worth caring about, that being that if like us you’re old enough to have seen this rodeo a few dozen times before there’s not much here, with perhaps the exception of the location, that’s going to be even remotely new to you.
However, that’s not stopped, checks notes, every rom-com in the history of film, so I don’t see why that should stop this film. Unchallenging stuff, perhaps, but greatly enjoyable nonetheless.