Sweet­heart

What makes a good gay film? We’re so used to the pre­dictabil­i­ty of main­stream queer cin­e­ma fea­tur­ing that tired sub-genre of the les­bian peri­od dra­ma (two more white women in pet­ti­coats yearn­ing to hold hands by the beach – they might kiss!). Or, the abun­dance of more con­tem­po­rary, over-exag­ger­at­ed inter­pre­ta­tions of campy gay men cov­ered in glit­ter (who also do drag). Or, at worst, the tired yet long-stand­ing ​‘bury your gays’ pop cul­ture trope, which has LGBTQ+ char­ac­ters in film and TV dying or hav­ing unhap­py end­ings at a dis­pro­por­tion­ate rate – a symp­tom of sen­sa­tion­al­is­ing queer trauma.

Mar­ley Morrison’s fea­ture writ­ing and direc­to­r­i­al debut fol­lows none of those clichés. Sweet­heart marks an authen­tic account of the murky, coun­ter­in­tu­itive waters of the queer expe­ri­ence and eros in ado­les­cence, fol­low­ing the 17-year-old AJ (Nell Bar­low) as she pines for a space of inde­pen­dence and self-expres­sion. AJ is dragged to a tacky British sea­side resort for a fam­i­ly hol­i­day, com­plete with the type of ama­teur enter­tain­ment acts and sun­burnt British hol­i­day­mak­ers to turn a teenager’s worst night­mare into a real­i­ty. Bored and social­ly awk­ward, in her sig­na­ture red avi­a­tor sun­glass­es, buck­et hat and bag­gy clothes, AJ’s nar­ra­tion can be annoying/​jarring at times, but it’s hard not to root for her.

Mor­ri­son isn’t inter­est­ed in adding yet anoth­er com­ing out sto­ry to to the queer canon and instead explores AJ’s endeav­our to be the ful­ly realised ver­sion of her queer self. She becomes cap­ti­vat­ed by the dreamy fig­ure of Isla (Ella-Rae Smith), a flir­ty yet impul­sive 18-year-old life­guard who works at the resort. Moments of dis­com­fort, ten­der­ness and eroti­cism become sub­ject to pre­dictabil­i­ty, with AJ’s angst-filled out­bursts being a sta­ple of the teen ​‘dram­e­dy’ genre.

Isla tells AJ: ​“It’s the best thing about being on hol­i­day, right? You get to be who­ev­er you want to be”. The chem­istry between the two girls is pal­pa­ble, and it’s refresh­ing to see a les­bian com­ing-of-age sto­ry that gives more of a focus to the char­ac­ters’ intri­ca­cies and per­son­al bat­tles, rather than any over­ar­ch­ing sex­u­al ten­sion. If Mor­ri­son strays from clichés, she cer­tain­ly man­ages to cap­ture the awk­ward dynam­ics of exist­ing as a queer per­son in a het­ero­nor­ma­tive envi­ron­ment. Although we know that AJ doesn’t feel like she belongs, there’s no con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing her sexuality.

Sweet­heart doesn’t rely on trau­mat­ic sto­ry­lines and nar­ra­tives of vic­tim­hood to make its audi­ence care about AJ. Her jour­ney isn’t straight­for­ward in any way, but it’s instead rel­e­vant and reflec­tive of the queer Gen Z expe­ri­ence. Some­times there is no res­o­lu­tion. Things stay messy, and that’s okay.