My Policeman is one of those overhyped films that come to you with a great promise that it fails to deliver. Pop star/actor Harry Styles may be very handsome but he is no matinee idol seems totally out of his depth playing a lead role. He is the least arresting policeman we have ever seen

The fascinating story is of a forbidden 1950s  love triangle, which reminds you of the sheer terror of being found out as gay in the UK.  Tom (Styles) plays the young policeman who believes if he marries his school teacher girlfriend Marion (Emma Corrin) he can get away with parlaying his friendship with museum curator Patrick (David Dawson) into a full-blown affair.

Directed by Michael Grandage  (English theater director) from a script by Ron Nyswaner (Oscar Nominee for Philadelphia) the story plays out in a series of flashbacks/forwards with different actors playing older versions of the characters. It requires a great deal of concentration at first to grasp the dynamics here.

Emma Corrin completely captures Marion’s innocence and how it gradually turns into real hate when the truth is revealed.  Dawson unquestionably gives the best performance in the film, but somehow even though the two men are very lustful, their affair lacks any hint of genuine passion.

In the 1990’s scenes, Marion (Gina McKee) is now nursing Patrick (Rupert Everett) who has had a stroke and can hardly speak, in the house she shares with Tom (Linus Roache).  This situation only stirs up anger and resentment that has been bubbling beneath the surface for the past 40 years. 

My Policeman succeeds best as a historical look at how impossible life was when homosexuality was still illegal in a very puritanical English culture.  Yet somehow it’s almost impossible to be really genuinely sympathetic to any of the characters involved in the triangle then or now.

P.S. And you want to see the film to see young naked Tom making passionate love, you should know those scenes are shot s discreetly so as not to offend your elderly Aunt 

P.P.S. My Policeman opens in movie theatres in the US and UK on 21 October, and will be available to stream on Amazon Prime from 4 November.

 

 

Review : Roger Walker-Dack

Editor in Chief : Queerguru 
Member of G.A.L.E.C.A. (Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) and NLGJA The Association of LGBT 
Journalists. and The Online Film Critics Society. Ex Contributung Editor The Gay Uk &Contributor Edge Media 
Former CEO and Menswear Designer of  Roger Dack Ltd in the UK    
one of the hardest-working journalists in the business' Michael Goff of Towleroad