News Editor John O’Connor reviews Donncha Gilmore’s directorial debut Girls and Boys and sits down with the film’s costume designer, Ciara Farrell.
Donncha Gilmore’s directorial debut Girls and Boys (2025) is a story of acceptance rather than love, a multilayered modern story of quiet rebellion that simultaneously plays into and equally severs itself from other resembling narratives. Critics and audiences alike have drawn similarities between Normal People and this film due to its location and subject matter. However, it would be an injustice to this film to make such a simplistic comparison. The slowly snapping thread of self acceptance that weaves through the film wraps itself in a completely singular package. In addition, the film’s queer themes cannot be compared with other Dublin-based narratives we have seen in recent years.
The two central characters set Girls & Boys apart. Charlie (Liath Hannon) and Jason (Adam Lunnon-Collery) and their relationship are depicted authentically. The pair, both students at Trinity, meet on Halloween but orbit two completely different worlds. Jason is a rugby player, embedded into the rigorously hypermasculine conforming structure of the team. Charlie, a hopeful filmmaker, is trans and therefore forced to reinvent herself while adjusting to circumstances and trying to stay true to herself.
A catalyst to the creation of these characters, and their inexplicably interweaved journeys, were their costumes by head costume designer, Ciara Farrell, who told the University Observer that her “overall inspiration [for Charlie and Jason] was college life. I had recently graduated college when I was brought onto the project, so I took inspiration from people I know,” she continued “I also talked a lot with the actors about their own characters and what they thought, I feel like no one knows their character as well as they do….”
Charlie is “really cool and sure of herself in how she dresses. Her look isn’t about following trends but expressing her personality and artistic spirit,” in contrast to Jason - who, “is not true to himself, and I wanted that to come across in his costumes throughout the film.” Farrell offered a candid insight into the character, saying, “There’s a scene in the film where he takes out his earrings after being made fun of by one of the other guys on his rugby team. Something so small, but shows how the opinions of the guys he hangs around with affect how he dresses,” and notes that by the end of the film “Jason’s wardrobe changes to clothes that feel more him. There isn’t a drastic change but enough to show that he is more confident in himself and who he is, such as wearing his jewellery and wearing clothes that he likes that aren’t just tracksuits and sports gear.”
Ms. Farrell told the University Observer that the biggest constraint in the costuming was the budget, “But saying that, I also think if I could go back in time I wouldn’t change it, as a lot of the magic of the film was making something special on a shoestring.” The limitations of the budget in creating these characters made them all the more memorable and will undoubtedly join the cinematic ether alongside other recent, well known Irish characters in media.