The mid 90s of “Dating Amber” might be a little different than yours, but for me there were elements that struck quite the emotional and humorous chord. Sure, you may not have grown up in Ireland near an army training camp, but chances are, if you are reading my site you are either a queer person or a person who loves us. You may have even played the part of a “beard.”

“Dating Amber” tells the story of Eddie, (played by “Normal People” and “Handsome Devil”s Fionn O’Shea) a closeted teen and his lesbian counterpart, Amber, who, out of mutual necessity pretend to be a couple to avoid suspicion and ease their final high school years.

What’s refreshing with “Dating Amber” are the layers both Eddie and Amber possess in terms of their identity. Amber herself takes ownership of their “relationship” because she has already come to terms with her own sexuality. Eddie, on the other hand has not. Eddie is along for the ride partly because he is looking, whether he knows it or not, to delay the inevitable understanding of who he really is. What “Dating Amber” does as well as I have ever seen in the “coming out” story is show Eddie’s opening up from denial to acceptance that many gay boys experience in a way that feels fully authentic.

Whether in the 90s or today, it’s never easy to disclose your identity or sexuality. Despite more queer characters on both television and film, when the majority of what you see is not in line with who you are there is a natural defense against that.

David Freyne, who wrote and directed “Dating Amber” has said in various interviews that this film is semi-autobiographical, not only with Eddie, but I also discovered in our conversation, with Amber. In discussing the creation of Amber, played remarkably by Lola Petticrew, David said “It was a way of funneling all the crap that I said as a teenager through somebody else…or what I thought, rather than saying.”

Once Eddie and Amber start their ruse, things of course take a comic turn or two.

“I think queer people everywhere need comedies, those kind of hopeful comic stories. We don’t get enough of those with queer leads,” David said.

And with the best comedy there is truth. But truth can also become heated and hearts can become broken. In multiple scenes Lola and Fionn take their characters to very deep, emotional places with incredible skill as they struggle with how to navigate their friendship, their fake romance and budding feelings toward other people in their lives (including a wonderful lesbian relationship that doesn’t require going back in time a hundred years as we have seen with the most recent popular lesbian romances.)

When I asked David about directing some of the dramatic moments with Fionn and Lola, he told me “we rehearsed a lot,” which certainly shows in the end result. “…making sure it felt honest for them. Because if they don’t buy it, we won’t buy it as an audience. On the day - letting those guys…when you are doing those big emotional sequences, the simplest way to do them is best. It’s about creating a space in which those actors can breathe. It’s a real gift when an actor gives that much of themselves.”

Considering David set the film in the mid 90s, the same time I graduated high school, I wanted to know some of the queer films that influenced him. “It’s a funny one…I was so repressed as a child so when I saw myself on screen…it was actually more scary than not. It was things like “Philadelphia” which you know, I was like, oh, so I’m gonna die of Aids.”

When David said this, I totally got it. Growing up in that time, even in Mississippi, there was that fear. And films like “Philadelphia” and even “Dead Poets Society” which to me was always a little queer…gave us tragic endings. It was often bleak for queer characters and characters we loved in movies.

I won’t spoil the ending of “Dating Amber” here, but in a sense Lola does for Eddie what he can’t do for himself. In discussing having an Amber in our lives, David said “Lola just is Amber. Lola is so smart, so acerbic, so funny…I wish I could go back in time and have a Lola…” and I have to agree.

I think the Eddie in all of us feels the same.

“Dating Amber” is available now! On Demand and Digital