“My Policeman”
Movie Review
"My Policeman" is an
American romantic drama film based on the Bethan Roberts novel of the same name
and directed by Michael Grandage, starring Harry Styles, Emma Corrinn, Gina
McGee, Linus Roach, David Dawson, and Rupert Everett. Set in the 1950s, the
film follows gay policeman Tom Burgess, married to schoolteacher Marion Taylor,
as he embarks on an affair with museum curator Patrick Hazlewood, whose secret
threatens to destroy them all.
The film opens with the sound of a
seagull, the sea, the calm of gray skies and Sussex. Marion played by Gina
McGee and her husband Tom played by Linus Roache, an elderly couple share
mutual dissatisfaction and hostility. Tom doesn't like Marion's decision to
have a sick Patrick, played by Rupert Everett, at home. He disapproves of his
re-entry into their lives and hints at the troubled past between the three in
the silence of the house.
When Marian stumbles upon
Patrick's diary, the pages take us back to 1950s England, where the couple made
some serious mistakes in their youth. Young Marion, a schoolteacher, falls in
love with policeman Tom, played by Harry Styles, and is introduced to museum
curator Patrick, played by David Dawson. Even after Tom's marriage to Marion,
she realizes that the three are inseparable and that Tom and Patrick are
lovers. Feeling betrayed, but in love with Tom, the wife goes to great lengths
to keep Patrick out of their lives. Homosexuality is illegal at the time, boys
pay the price for falling in love, and Marion's past begins to haunt her.
Cinematography by Ben Davies and
music by Steven Price evoke the depth, wasted time and life of director Michael
Grandage's film. The actors, young and old, inhabit the heads of their
characters well, but the film falls almost short of the impact it should. The
overwhelming silence is gripping but it never quite reaches a crescendo where
your heart sobs for the characters and their forbidden for one and unrequited
love for the other. The lighting is beautiful and portrays intimacy versus
responsibility accurately. It is also beautiful how the lovers move
effortlessly and connect with each other. The intensity of the film is tempered
by its pace and aversion to conflict. Oddly enough, it also works in the
climax. Years of unspoken words and buried feelings finally found an outlet.
Harry Styles' physical beauty makes him perfect as Tom. Although Harry has room
for improvement in his acting, he and David Dawson convincingly portray their
characters' suffocation.
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