Ex-One Direction singer, the deliberately sexually ambiguous 27-year-old Harry Styles, finally goes gay. Well in the movies that is! He stars in a highly anticipated new queer film called ‘My Policeman” about a police constable who’s hiding a big secret in 1950s Britain. He plays closeted PC Tim Burgess who meets his future wife on the beach at Brighton. Bowing to society’s expectations they marry, but Tom however falls for museum curator Patrick Hazelwood (David Dawson) and the pair have a decades-long affair, which turns their lives upside down.
Back then homosexuality was not only illegal in Britain but totally socially unacceptable so being ‘outed’ could totally ruin your life. Tom knows this so decides it would be safer for him to stay in a relationship with Marion than to be with Patrick. However, when it becomes clear to Marion that Tom really does want to be with Patrick, it sparks a devastating chain of events.Directed by Brit openly gay Tony award-winning director Michael Grandage, the film has such a fascinating cast with Marion being played by non-binary actor Emma Corrin (Princess Diana in The Crown, Linus Roache (who starred in queer drama Priest) playing Older Tom, and openly-gay Rupert Everett (My Best Friends Wedding).
This is a big break for Styles who previously had a ‘blink-and-you-will-miss-it-role in Dunkirk, but word on the street is that we will see a lot more of Styles this time around. Literally. We hear Harry shoots two sex scenes with co-star David Dawson, and there’s also a scene where he’s naked on-screen by himself. We are promised that not much is going to be left to the imagination.
The movie is based on the 2012 novel My Policeman by Bethan Roberts which explores the criminalization of homosexuality in the 1950s. The novel looks at the norms around sexuality in Brighton spanning the decades until the 1990s. It is written from the points of view of Marion and Patrick, both thinking about Tom, the man they love so much. The novel was inspired by the life of the author E.M Forster (Maurice) who was in a secret relationship with a married, heterosexual policeman.
