My Policeman

Movie Name: My Policeman
Year of Release: 2022
Director: Michael Grandage
Starring: Gina McKee, Linus Roache, Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, Rupert Everett, David Dawson, Kadiff Kirwan, Emily John, Dora Davis, Joseph Potter
Genre: Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 6
Watch it on Amazon Prime

Synopsis and Review

Another Amazon Studios' exclusive release, "My Policeman" had its debut at the Toronto Film Festival of 2022 where it was met with tepid reviews and response. The film is Michael Grandage's sophomore effort, following his feature directorial debut, "Genius", which premiered in 2016. The film is an adaptation of the novel by Bethan Roberts, and features a script from the celebrated Ron Nyswaner (who wrote Jonathan Demme's "Philadelphia", John Curran's "The Painted Veil" and going further back to the beginning of his career, Gillian Armstrong's "Mrs. Soffel"). The film focuses on the story of three characters, whose lives we get to witness during two periods in time. In the late 50s, we get to witness how Marion meets Tom who has just joined the police force. They start going out, and Marion then meets Patrick, a good friend of Tom's who works for the local museum (in Brighton). The three of them are soon inseparable, and while Patrick with his cultured ways and charm, seems a good fit with Marion, it is Tom who proposes to Marion. Upon getting married, and on one of Patrick's visits, she soon discovers the amorous relationship which unites Tom and Patrick, something that started even before she came into the picture. The other part of the narrative takes place some 30 something years later, with Marion and Tom now retired, living in the seaside town of Peacehaven. Their existence changes once Patrick comes to live with them. He has suffered a stroke, which has rendered him quite unable of being as autonomous as before. Tom refuses to engage and even see him, but Marion desperately wants to close old wounds that were created in the past.

"My Policeman" is a film that is a somewhat of a quiet observational piece of how the persecution of homosexuals in the past destroyed not only the lives of those directly impacted by it, but also and to a certain extent, those who were in its periphery. Michael Grandage intertwines the timelines between the 50s and the more recent period, in order to showcase the atonement some characters are trying to achieve, but also how certain actions had dramatic consequences in how the lives of these characters turned out to be. While the narrative focused on the exchanges and events of the 1950s features the more media friendly performers, it's also the less interesting of the film, since not all performers manage to give the characters the same level of authenticity and inner conflict that the more seasoned performers easily convey in the other chapter of the narrative. The director is fairly successful in staging the events and bringing them vividly to life, even if some of the performances are indeed not quite as stirring as they should, but ultimately the narrative itself suffers from the fact that the sense of passion, of betrayal and ultimately of crushing defeat at the hands of injustice, is somewhat anemically portrayed. What is left and what truly registers, is a life of pain and wasted opportunities, something that the more seasoned cast captures in perfection. The film is once more a great testament of the immense talents of Linus Roache, Gina McKee and Rupert Everett, who deserve an entire feature of their own. The production team is quite solid, with highlights going to the cinematography of Ben Davis, the score of Steven Price and production design by Maria Djurkovic. Even if it is an uneven feature, it's one worth watching.