My Policeman Review: This Love is All Consuming

My Policeman is a 2022 Drama, Romance directed by Michael Grandage. The drama stars Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, and David Dawson. It is based on the 2012 novel carrying the same name written by Bethan Roberts. While the movie is interesting in theory, it doesn’t quite come to fruition on the screen.

I do have to preface this by saying that drama, romance movies are usually not my cup of tea, but this wasn’t terrible. Regardless, let’s jump into my thoughts of My Policeman.

What is My Policeman about?

My Policeman is about forbidden love, and the impacts that has on Tom, Marion, and Patrick. The movie follows our characters in their young lives as they try to juggle life and relationships. My Policeman focuses mainly on how Tom handles being stuck in between Patrick and Marion, and having to hide his true identity. It puts the struggles of being LGBTQ in the 1950s on full display.

Where can I Watch My Policeman?

My Policeman can be streamed on Prime Video for free and is unavailable to be rented online.

My Policeman Review

I thought My Policeman was okay, but there wasn’t anything that was done really well. The idea behind the movie is one that is interesting in theory, but it that intrigue never came to fruition and it left me wanting more from the movie. The important messages this movie set out to show on the big screen were there, but lost some of the momentum due to a lacklustre plot. Like many Drama movies, My Policeman relies a lot on its characters to keep you engaged.

I found Tom, Marion, and Patrick to be decently likeable characters, although they all had their quirks or attributes. These attributes made them feel more realistic and added depth to their character. I found our Old versions didn’t mean a lot, and just seemed to add more scenes and length to the movie

You can tell quite quickly that our characters have changed in between the two timelines, but most of this development is either inferred or not shown at all. Young Tom and Old Tom are quite clearly different characters, but the movie infers all the development. I would have loved some scenes in between to provide a little bit more information about Tom in-between those two life stages.

I thought David Dawson did a really good job as Young Patrick, and Emma Corrin was quite good as Young Marion. They both put on good performances in a secondary protagonist role, but the main focus of My Policeman is Harry Styles. Styles plays Young Tom, and while he doesn’t do a bad job, his performance feels off. I thought his delivery of lines was good, but his reactions to other lines felt weird. Facial expressions and little things while Styles was still on camera but not the main focus weren’t good and really hampered his performance. It wasn’t horrible, but it did make me wonder why he isn’t making music instead.

The plot in My Policeman lacks direction and substance. I don’t expect a ton from Romance, Drama movies, as the characters carry the movie and the story can be lacking. That being said, it doesn’t feel like we ever hit punchline. With flipping between the two timelines, and spending most of the movie in the past, having the big payoff in the present felt weird. We get a monumental moment in the past as well, but again it didn’t have the plot build up to create a meaningful moment. I felt like I was lacking connection to the plot, thus the payoff didn’t feel all that impactful.

Overall, I thought the characters were decent and the plot was pretty lacking. From a simple prespective it isn’t a bad movie to watch, but the ending didn’t mean a lot as we didn’t have a ton of connection to either the plot or the characters. Would have loved move details and less things to infer. The powerful messages that the movie was trying to portray would have also landed much better with a stronger plot. Not a movie I would watch again and not one I would recommend you watch either.