My Policeman got Biff Tannen’d. I’m sure the writers had a well thought out period piece about the struggles of LGBTQ people in a different time. However, before they could tell their movie, someone switched the script out for the 1997 version of the movie before going into production. As such, My Policeman should satisfy the “I want to see Harry Styles be sexy crowd” but miss any greater significance by ignoring 30 years of LGBTQ content.
The movie starts out in sleepy Sussex, where Tom (Linus Roache) and Marion (Gina McKee) live out their quiet elderly years. Marion soon finds out their old friend Patrick (Rupert Everett) had a stroke, and she agrees to care for him. Tom is more hesitant, clearly scared of what happened in the past. The past gets resurrected when Marion reads through Patrick’s diary, which recounts their lives in the late 1950’s where a younger Tom (Harry Styles), a policeman, started courting Marion (younger, played by Emma Corrin), while starting a torrid affair with museum curator Patrick (David Dawson).
My Policeman is content to repeat the beats of standard dramas of LGBTQ past. The movie laments a world that puts rules between Tom and Patrick, drearily dousing their ill fated romance in dark, bleak, somber tones due to their secrecy. Poor Marion is trapped as the sidepiece; she’s enamored with Tom and friends with Patrick, setting up for a crippling emotional betrayal found in supposed secrecy. That standard setup has been used for decades now, unfairly forcing My Policeman into comparisons with some of the great LGBTQ love stories like Brokeback Mountain, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Moonlight. Those 3 movies have layers of complexity lacking in My Policeman, content to just live in the doomed romance. I suppose when Harry Styles is ripping his clothes off in passion, that’s enough in 2022, but from a storytelling point of view, there’s some meat on the bone that My Policeman isn’t interested in; tasting some of that meat would have made the movie more potent and interesting.
Chemistry wise, Harry Styles and David Dawson have the “it” factor. The moments of passion between them sizzle, making me hopeful for Styles’s acting career after the Don’t Worry Darling fiasco. He’s quite good here, emotionally stuck between two people he cares about in a society that won’t let him make the choice he really wants. Even though Emma Corrin proves she can be great in doomed romances, My Policeman has no idea what to do with her, since the story works best if she has only a chaste/non-amorous connection with Styles. In addition, the big third act moves by Marion are quickly are swept away; instead of living in the emotions of the characters’ choices, the writers decide it’s time to wrap it up. As such, that non connection torpedoes most of the scenes with the older characters, only working at all because of Roache, Everett, and McKee, who give it the old college try.
Despite the mediocre storytelling, My Policeman is the better of the two Harry Styles vehicles in 2022. Though for a “Styles completist” I suppose watching both will give you an idea of what it’s like trying to hook up with him. Dang it, “Styles completist” sounds like a Harry Styles sex act…stupid sexy One Direction got me all hot & bothered.