My Policeman
Welcome to Breakout, the MASSIVE scheme sending 12 first-time writers to London Film Festival to write their debut professional film reviews. For the 12 days following the 12 days of the festival, we’ll be publishing the writing of our chosen stars to celebrate cinema at its finest and introduce you to the next generation’s most promising new critics.
Next up, Glasgow’s Rebecca Crockett reviews My Policeman.
It all begins with a decision to reach out and touch. This small moment ignites decades of passion, jealousy and regret in My Policeman. Director Michael Grandage is interested in the way these tiny decisions can shape a person’s life in his adaptation of Bethan Robert’s 2012 romance novel.
My Policeman moves between the 50s and the 90s, beginning in sunny Brighton in 1957, when Tom (Harry Styles) begins an innocent courtship with schoolteacher Marion (Emma Corrin). However, He also engages in a heated affair with museum curator Patrick (David Dawson).
By 1999, the sun is gone, and the stormy beaches of Seahaven serve as the backdrop for what remains of this complicated love triangle. Gina McKee, Rupert Everett, and Linus Roache play older versions of the main characters. each of them reflecting on the years past, with Everett beautifully expressing Patrick’s angst without words.
Roache demonstrates how repressed pain can fester over decades. The actor gives a restrained performance allowing only glimpses of Tom’s real personality to seep through. You watch as a man white-knuckles his way through life.
The younger cast are also skilled in the art of quiet heartbreak. Corrin is an expert in crumbling marriages after their stunning turn as Princess Diana in The Crown. They downplay huge emotions, making it even more painful to watch.
Dawson is magnetic. He seduces the audience not with grand sensual displays, but a quiet intensity that sucks you in. He seems to hold Styles’ hand, who lacks confidence as a leading man. His delivery is stiff, and it doesn’t help when the script struggles to find the rhythm of a real conversation.
However, it’s worth it for the final shot of the film. Two estranged lovers, full of unsaid words, uninterested in anything but each other.
Rebecca Crockett is a journalism student at the University of Stirling. She is the Film and Tv editor at Stirling’s student newspaper and uses that power to talk about the Bechdel test, long-takes and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Her favourite horror film is The Cat in the Hat.
My Policeman is out in UK cinemas now. Check back here for more Breakout reviews.