My Policeman

I can hardly believe the 6.8 rating on here for this wonderful life long romance journey. The screenplay is brilliant - but perhaps some people marked it down because in fact its not just fiction.

Similar stories have continued for generations. The story of forbidden love and conformity collide together in this surprising piece of excellent work.

The (surprising) cast (young and older) were all excellent in this forbidden love triangle. This story is not make believe; whilst I am not saying the storyline is common - I am saying its not unusual for those times. Perhaps less so these days.

The low score on here surprises me - considering much higher scores are given to series/films that are complete codswallop.

Give it a go - but its not for the bigoted or squeamish.

SPOILER ALERT: there are no gun chases/Shoot outs not car chases.

Brokeback Mountain perfected the tragically doomed period gay love story and "My Policeman" borrows more than a few beats from the original masterpiece. Emma Corrin is basically a more naive and developed version of Michelle Williams's character, both remarkable in each part to be fair.

The whole thing has a sightly deja-vu feeling and is classic to a fault. I guess this explains the bad reviews but, truth is, this is an absolutely fine film. It certainly didn't deserve all the hate especially compared to that other and really terrible Harry Styles vehicule. Here his soft spoken acting perfectly fits the blunt straightforwardly straight character. The harsh selfishness of youngTom is the most fascinating and refreshing element of the film.

My Policeman uses the traditional biographic structure of back and forth timelines to great results. The idealism of the 50s sequences full of gorgeous arts, elegant flats, cosy countryside and rapturous love is in stark contrast with the gloomy grey suburban present days. It is true than the movie would have benefited from a more balanced use of the present time rather than just being the obvious reminder of a world of redemption and social progress.

But My Policeman is gripping as an exploration of the dark places romance can put us through.

Not reading the book, being interested by music of Harry Stiles and admiring Rupert Everett, it is just easy to not ignore this movie.

The expectation - maybe influenced by Firebird by Peeter Rabane. Sure, different context but same spider webb of intolerance .

The film is just gifted. Good acting, fair story, seductive images.

But you can not feel the tension , emotions and the deepness of the inner fights of characters.

So, you have one verdict - a beautiful film. But the connections are too fragile and you feel entire story as exterior one .

But it works.

And the delicate bitterness remains a precious gift from Michael Grandage.

This film was so much more than I was expecting! It's a beautiful story and the chemistry between the younger characters was fantastic.

This is a beautiful reminder of how far we have come and a shocking reminder of how things used to be in the 1950s

The intimacy scenes were wonderful and tastefully shot. From early on you can feel the spark and tension between Tom and Patrick.

David Dawson is a brilliant Patrick and Harry styles did a great job with Tom. Emma corrin was wonderful as always.

My only criticism is I didn't recognise the older characters to be a good fit. They didn't seem to embody the characters as the younger actors.

All in all a great movie which left me in tears.

I've not read the book this is based on, so I'm torn if this is actually something of value or just a film version of something similar to a 1950's paperback type novel about "forbidden love." Somehow it has the feel of both. One thing it does have is a miscast actor as the pivotal character in this love triangle between two men and a one woman. Harry Styles showed a lot of potential in his small role in Dunkirk and he is not terrible here at all, but he totally lacks any sort of gravity or depth necessary for this role. He's a novice and it shows. Somehow the film is still interesting despite that. It's a three character film played by six actors in two different time periods, the late 1950's and the early 2000's. The other five all give fine performances of which I appreciated Gina McKee the most. This is very well directed, though it is not exactly an original storyline, but it still has relevancy and it is also a reminder of just how far gay rights have come since those horrid times not that many years ago. This is ultimately a sad story of three people who were never able to have the lives they wanted, most of that society's fault, some their own. There are some good old songs used to great effect here and the whole film has an appropriate mood. It's flawed, but I still admire some of it even if it might be similar to a 1950's forbidden love paperback.