Post by Dracula on Nov 26, 2022 9:40:17 GMT -5
My Policeman(11/12/2022)
The new film My Policeman has been almost entirely talked about in terms of its star, Harry Styles, and the fact that it features him playing a character in a gay romance. That logline is probably enough to get quite a few AO3 writers into the theater door, but there hasn’t been much else said about the film’s story and production. The film is directed by a guy named Michael Grandage, who’s had a pretty long and successful career in theater direction but has only made one film before and that debut did not make much of a splash. His work here is pretty close to what you’d expect from a period piece directed by a stage director: dignified and actor centric. The film follows a policeman in 1950s England who marries a woman despite being a closeted homosexual and ends up starting an affair with a local artist, leading to something of a love triangle with the wife. In broad strokes that’s not dissimilar from Brokeback Mountain: dude in a typically masculine job has a secret bond forbidden bond which leaves the woman he was in a sham marriage with in the dark. That’s not necessarily dissimilar from how a lot of gay romances played out in the times before homosexuality was accepted by society, so it may be unfair to compare every such scenario to Ang Lee’s modern classic but the comparison doesn’t really help this one. The film has a somewhat awkward framing story as well which turns the whole thing into a sort of flashback narrative with two different casts and I’m not sure that ever quite paid of satisfactorily either. Still there are some good performances here as well as some decent period detail, so if the cast and plot interests you it’s probably worth a look.
*** out of Five
The new film My Policeman has been almost entirely talked about in terms of its star, Harry Styles, and the fact that it features him playing a character in a gay romance. That logline is probably enough to get quite a few AO3 writers into the theater door, but there hasn’t been much else said about the film’s story and production. The film is directed by a guy named Michael Grandage, who’s had a pretty long and successful career in theater direction but has only made one film before and that debut did not make much of a splash. His work here is pretty close to what you’d expect from a period piece directed by a stage director: dignified and actor centric. The film follows a policeman in 1950s England who marries a woman despite being a closeted homosexual and ends up starting an affair with a local artist, leading to something of a love triangle with the wife. In broad strokes that’s not dissimilar from Brokeback Mountain: dude in a typically masculine job has a secret bond forbidden bond which leaves the woman he was in a sham marriage with in the dark. That’s not necessarily dissimilar from how a lot of gay romances played out in the times before homosexuality was accepted by society, so it may be unfair to compare every such scenario to Ang Lee’s modern classic but the comparison doesn’t really help this one. The film has a somewhat awkward framing story as well which turns the whole thing into a sort of flashback narrative with two different casts and I’m not sure that ever quite paid of satisfactorily either. Still there are some good performances here as well as some decent period detail, so if the cast and plot interests you it’s probably worth a look.
*** out of Five
