by Austen Terry, Contributing Writer
Several of the great romance movies of the past two decades have used flashbacks to some degree or another to tell the story in two parts. Mostly, flashbacks are used to tell how a couple begins and how they end. While a few of the romance stories use flashbacks well, some would have been served better to be told chronologically. This is the case with the 2022 movie, My Policeman, which is the second Harry Styles movie to come out this year. You may have read articles that only described this movie as, “Hary Styles Gay Policeman Movie,” which is true in part. In some areas, it is so much more than that, and in others so much less. The Amazon Prime flick falls short of being another great romance movie.
My Policeman is the forbidden love story between Tom (Harry Styles, Linus Roache) and Patrick (David Dawson, Rupert Everett), who meet when Patrick comes looking for a policeman one day after an accident. Patrick helps Tom realize who he is, and does have feelings for Patrick, but he is also in love with Marion (Emma Corrin, Gina McKee). Tom spends most of the story struggling with the two sides of himself half, one of which wants to marry Marion and have a family with her, while the other wants a life with Patrick. In 1950s England, being gay is very illegal, and can end you up either in jail or dead. The movie begins in the later of the two stories, where Patrick has suffered a stroke and Marion, against Tom’s wishes, volunteers to take care of Patrick. She begins to look back through Patricks journal’s to find out what really was going on 40 years prior with Tom and Patrick.
Starting the story where it does takes away the suspense of what life Tom chooses. You are robbed of finding out by being told right away. That’s why this story would have served been better if it started just before Tom and Patrick meet, telling the story, then flashing forward to the end result. Instead, it keeps jumping back and forth, which has worked in other romance movies; but here it drags the film down. It would be better to start the film where homosexuality is illegal, and showing how Tom has to deal with these two aspects of his life. The already powerful scene toward the end could have garnered more emotion this way. The movie feels dual and flat because of this. Though it looks beautiful, the story has its legs cut out from beneath it, causing any emotional connection to be muted.
The casting of this film is really hit and miss as well — the better performances don’t make up for the worst performances. First off, without being told, I knew Roache had to be playing the older Tom, mainly from how he is dressed, but also by how he carries himself. From the little we have of him, Roache makes me care more about Tom than Styles does, which is the opposite of Marion. Corrin does a fantastic job — they bought something to the role that will cause me to seek out more of their work. However, McKee was the opposite. The older Marion is not a good person at all, and an argument could be made that Marion as a whole isn’t a good person at all. But there are still likable traits of her younger self. Dawson, however, is a great younger Patrick, and you feel bad for him because of the world he lives in. He wants to just be happy, but people back then didn’t want to understand that love is love. There’s not much to say about Everett’s performance, as he doesn’t say much, but he’s still able to show more emotional range than Styles.
Finally, let’s talk about Styles. Its time for us to have an intervention for him, because he really just needs to stick to singing. In one year, I have seen him in three films: the post credits scene in The Eternals, Don’t Worry Darling,and My Policeman, and its safe to say he is good in very small doses. You can argue that Styles is playing the exact same character from Don’t Worry Darling as he is here here (a gaslighting manipulating husband in the ‘50s), but he is so wooden and flat. Even when he is supposed to be emotional or showing love to the two people he’s suppose to be in love with, it feels like there is nothing going on. It’s almost like he just thinks acting is just reading your lines and going home. I know Harry can perform — I have seen videos of his shows. If he gave 50% of the performance he does on stage in his acting career, he would be a decent actor. He either needs to fire his acting coach or get an acting coach.
My Policeman is only the third Amazon Studios movie that I have seen, and after looking through the list of what they’ve produced, I have determined they need better marketing people. I have seen now three of their movies and have only heard of less than a dozen of the others. This shows they aren’t promoting these like they should. Go on any social media in the past few weeks and see the amount of trailers or blurbs of people talking about the upcoming movies left in 2022. None of the movie guys I follow have even mentioned My Policeman. Amazon really needs to step up their advertising game to get people outside of movie buffs to watch their movies.
Although Michael Grandage does a good job directing and Ron Nyswaner does a decent job adapting a screenplay from the Bethan Roberts book, the film still falls short of what it could be. The single most British thing about this movie is a quick scene of Styles stepping out of a Police Call Box (for those Doctor Who fans). Another scene that is decent, but could have been more emotional is later in the movie when Tom sees two characters who could be in a homosexual relationship in public, and he immediately breaks down, seeing the life he could have had. Given more context, we could have really felt for older Tom, but it still falls flat.
All in all, while this film definitely could have been more, it is still a decent watch. It doesn’t feel like it is trying to capitalize on the backs of the LGBTQIA+ community, it but could have done more. Even though its almost two hours long, the story could have been extended, allowing you to be more emotionally involved.
Score: 5/10
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