The 52: Dating Amber

   From June 2023 to June 2024 I'll be watching a lgbtqia+ film each week and coming back here with my thoughts, feelings and plenty of hopes we aren't met with the "kill your gays" trope. I call this The 52.

I’m so, so, so sorry, Marry My Dead Body. I love Amber now.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Dating Amber is… oh my gosh, it’s superb. I’d seen a couple clips of it floating around, but when I decided to watch it I was fully waiting to see a film that was not, in fact, queer. Maybe the tiniest spec of representation had graced it with the LGBTQIA+ tag on netflix and I was going to have to find a new film to watch in a matter of seconds...

I’ve rarely been so happy to be wrong and, oh my gosh, this film. Even a week later I felt close on ecstatic thinking about it. From the acting that was gutturally honest and a story that was just perfect in every way, to a soundtrack that felt a little bit Heartstopper and a whole lot iconic, Dating Amber was just really ruddy good.

James is being picked on by guys I’ve no idea why he’s even friends with, Amber is tired of the whole school using her, and realising they both need help she offers a proposition: they fake date until they can get out of their small town and live the life they dream of.

Amber and James are polar opposites and so incredibly similar, the friends each other needed rather than, perhaps, the friends they would have picked, and as their relationship forms (oft accompanied by Amber throwing rocks at James’ head), the hope, compassion and love they share is just so beautiful to watch.

With Amber by his side, James begins to come to terms with his own sexuality and the two… by the end of the film I was frozen, realising that I had just witnessed something truly special that I immediately wanted to watch all over again, for in a matter of hours these two characters had become incredibly important to me and I cared about them beyond the realms of film.

Dating Amber is a standout film, emotional and powerful, sensitive and bloody fantastic. It was my favourite film of 2023, let alone (at this stage) The 52.

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