My Policeman (15)

In 1950s Brighton, schoolteacher Marion is smitten with policeman Tom and they nervously edge towards marriage. Tom introduces Marion to museum curator Patrick, who shares many of her cultural passions such as art and classical music. She is blissfully unaware that Tom is closeted and is exploring his sexuality with Patrick behind closed doors, fearful of the reprisals should their relationship be exposed. Four decades later, Tom and Marion are still married and living in Newhaven.

LondonNet Film Review

My Policeman (15) Film Review from LondonNet

In 1950s Brighton, schoolteacher Marion (Emma Corrin) is smitten with policeman Tom (Harry Styles) and they nervously edge towards marriage. Tom introduces Marion to museum curator Patrick (David Dawson), who shares many of her cultural passions such as art and classical music. She is blissfully unaware that Tom and Patrick are intimately involved behind closed doors at a time when homosexuality is illegal and men conduct affairs under a cloak of darkness. Four decades later, Tom (Linus Roache) and Marion (Gina McKee) are married and living in Newhaven. She invites an incapacitated Patrick (Rupert Everett) to live with them while he recuperates from a stroke. Tom refuses to engage with the patient but Marion is determined to repair damage of the past…

My Policeman is a handsomely crafted period drama based on the book by Bethan Roberts, which has been adapted for the screen by Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia). Styles’ casting as a man ashamed of his authentic self is the principal draw of Michael Grandage’s picture but he lacks the emotional range to convey Tom’s inner torment and is the weak link of the post-war cast. Impeccably choreographed sex scenes with Dawson leave nothing to the imagination including some gratuitous buttock nudity.

In 1990s scenes, when sins of the past have inflicted deep wounds that may never heal, McKee, Roache and Everett simply tread dramatic water before a resolution that feels disappointingly neat and tidy given all of the secrecy, denial and self-loathing that has gone before.

– Sarah Lee