Styles dampens his inherent charisma in ’50s period piece
Even if you’ve never been to a Harry Styles concert, it’s hardly difficult to comprehend his huge appeal. He’s ... Harry Styles.
But “huge” is not the word to describe Styles’ performance in “My Policeman,” a melancholy period piece about love, loss, pain, prejudice and the danger of living inauthentically. The biggest challenge for Styles, and for the studio that lists him as one of a six-actor ensemble, is to mute the confident pop-star magnetism in service of the story. This he does. At times, though, it seems he’s pressing too hard on that mute button, erasing personality from his portrayal.
To be fair, much of this may stem from choices by director Michael Grandage and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner, who fashion Styles’ character, Tom, a working-class policeman who hides his gay relationship while in a heterosexual marriage, as a blank canvas onto whom others project their desires. There has been criticism that Styles gives an underdeveloped performance, but that ignores the fact that his very character is underdeveloped, and that’s perhaps the point.
Still, it’s a striking contrast with a sharply drawn portrayal like that of David Dawson as Patrick, Tom’s lover. Or that of Rupert Everett, who plays older Patrick without benefit of language, in the aftermath of a stroke.
“My Policeman” is based on the novel by Bethan Roberts, who was inspired by the life of famed British novelist E.M. Forster and his love triangle with a London police officer
and the officer’s wife, who became a good friend. From this, Roberts fashioned a 1950s-based story about a similar trio but with a devastating, terrible twist — yet grounded in the same shocking historical reality: It was a crime for men to have sex with each other in England until 1967.
We begin in the 1990s with Marion (Gina McKee) inviting older Patrick to recover at her home rather than in a depressing care home. Her husband, Tom (Linus Roache), is furious, though we don’t know why for now.
We flash back to the 1950s, with the younger Tom (Styles) wooing the winsome Marion (Emma Corrin). It’s a chaste courtship. Tom invites Marion, who loves art, to a private gallery tour courtesy of a curator he has met while out on his beat. This curator is Patrick, and he’s all the things Tom isn’t: intellectual, worldly, cultured.
But Marion remains attracted to Tom. And one night, Tom pops the question. Patrick toasts them at their wedding. All goes well until Tom bafflingly blows up at Patrick at the dining table.
All this is Marion’s memory of their courtship.
There is another version. It’s one that older Marion reads about in Patrick’s diaries in a box of his belongings. We return to the same scenes from Patrick’s perspective, to see that all along, Tom was having a passionate affair with Patrick.
While the sex scenes between Tom and Patrick generate all the heat, his marriage to Marion is not loveless. They do have a genuine union, and Tom tries to have both Marion and Patrick — only partly because his gay relationship must remain secret.
Tragedy soon strikes, and it is painful not only to watch what happens to the relationship between the three, but to be reminded of the terrible way gay men were treated in Britain.
It is, finally, Everett’s face, lined with sorrow, that haunts the final tableau, a compelling few seconds that brings some closure to a sad couple of hours and gives us, perhaps, a ray of hope in our capacity to heal.
MPAA rating: R (for sexual content)
Running time: 1:53
How to watch: In theaters now and streaming Nov. 4 on Amazon Prime Video