Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Leslie Felperin

Who We Love review – queer teen’s Dublin awakening is Euphoria with Guinness

Clara Harte (left) and Venetia Bowe in Who We Love.
Packed plot … Clara Harte (left) and Venetia Bowe in Who We Love. Photograph: Peccadillo Pictures

In the outskirts of modern-day Dublin, teenage Lily (Clara Harte) looks on the outside like a kid on top of the world: pretty, blessed with nice-enough middle-class parents and friends, good at the fiendishly aggressive stick-based sport Camogie that only the Irish play. But a recent exchange programme trip to San Francisco got her thinking she might be gay or bi, especially after a semi-chaste tryst with another young woman of her age. As the new school term starts, Lily’s friend Violet (Venetia Bowe) offers to “go lezzer” with Lily, and the two start snogging in the toilet – only to almost get caught by their peers. Keen to hold on to her popular-girl status, Violet makes out that Lily had been the more sexually aggressive and soon other kids are bullying Lily; she starts withdrawing, staying home from school and self-harming.

Only Lily’s friend Simon (Dean Quinn), the only out gay boy in the village, offers support. That includes taking her up to Dublin for a night out where they meet Oonagh (Amy-Joyce Hastings) who grumpily serves as their queer sensei, offering understanding, advice and reassurance that it will all be fine, more or less. Practically moments later, Simon and Lily fall in with a shady gay brother and sister team who take the younger kids to bed, which is definitely dodgy given the implied age difference and the fact that the siblings let a voyeuristic older man watch them making out because he pays them.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.