My Policeman (2022) Review

The arrival of Patrick into Marion and Tom’s home will trigger events from 40 years in the past, as diaries reveal the deep nature of romance and love.

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*LFF 2022 Preview Screening*

My Policeman takes a little bit of time to get going as the opening scenes we see an unwell Patrick, who had recently had a stroke moving into Marion and Tom’s home. With only Marion caring, or attempting to care for him and showing some sympathy for his situation. Tom however did not even want to see him and could not even bare to go into the room that had been made up for him. Marion then eventually started reading Patrick’s diary and while she might have known a little bit of some situations and had an idea it was clear as she began reading them that she actually had no idea on the depth of the relationship between Tom and Patrick!

When we go back in time those 40 years we get to see that everything is not as simple and straight forward, especially for Tom. It looks as though he has met Marion and fallen in love and they get married. The thing is though the secret affair with Patrick, in a time when it was illegal to be a homosexual. The fact that Tom was a policeman made it even more risky in his visits to Patrick’s.

I found myself well and truly engrossed in the story and the sex scenes really do help to paint the picture of passion and truly wanting someone. When you compare Tom and Patrick together to when Tom has sex with Marion, it lacks any real passion and more going through the motions because that is what you’re supposed to do. It does make it rather difficult to comprehend how Marion felt as though that was all she deserved. Tough to watch the way in which that sex occurred between the newly married couple and awkward as a viewer because we can see its just not right. Especially when you see the passion between Tom and Patrick.

While some little plot twists or maybe more turns are pretty obvious the way in which the story is told and unfolds with the flashback form to the current day works out in such a lovely manner. Certain moments will fully break your heart and towards the final scenes it really does hit you in all the feels as Tom eventually realises what he was robbed of in his life. Seeing the young gay couple in a shop really broke me for him and at that moment it made me wonder just how many lives were totally destroyed over the years due to homosexuality being illegal. All of those people who had to lie about who they were and not being able to be true to themselves and those around them really broke me thinking about it.

The performances are impressive with the characters having an older and younger actor for the time changes, all of which are very good in terms of likeness for the each other and that has to be praised for the good casting. Emma Corrin has received a lot of attention for her role in the crown so it was good to see her in a different role and she is given a difficult task in this one that’s for sure. Gina McKee is very good as the older Marion and quite frankly she always adds to whatever film she is in. David Dawson was a true scene stealer and that was such a joy to witness, then with Rupert Everett taking on the older Patrick role and considering some of the treatment he had in Hollywood as a gay man and not wanting to be typecast this was possible a very personal film for him in terms of representation? Linus Roache was given the older Tom role which meant he was certainly not happy with the existence he had. Harry Styles is going through a transition into the acting world which has been happening slowly to then progressing onto leading roles. Always difficult for a singer to then make that switch across but he is certainly not scared to take on different roles. I mean he is rather charming right?

Overall, I felt as though this film has some incredible points about the suppression of homosexuality and highlighting the treatment they received not only from the police in terms of violence but the comments from other people who did not view it as “normal” and this is a reminder that people could be so cruel and I am so pleased that for the majority of people sexuality is not something that can be wrong in 2022.