It opens in the late 90s with Marion taking Patrick, who's suffered a stroke, into the home she shares with Tom to nurse him in his recovery. Tom's angry about it and refuses to go into his room. Marion insists they need to work through "what happened" all those years ago. It seems like a dreadful idea to me.
Marion begins to read Patrick's old diaries that have arrived with him and the film then cuts back and forth between the two time frames. The film is plodding and particularly drags in the later time period where it feels like three mopey people moping around each other, mopily.
There are moments during the two young love stories where it's more engaging and I think it would've served the film to have kept most of its focus and screen time in the 1950s. The performances are adequate - I don't hold any of the actors responsible for this film's lack of charisma, not even the older cast whose scenes are particularly bland.
It isn't especially easy to put your finger on what exactly is wrong with this film. It's quite an achievement to make a film with this level of emotive content feel bland and I think ultimate responsibility has to be with the director Michael Grandage. This is only Grandage's second film, he's built a career in the theatre. His first was a film called Genius. It also had an all-star cast - Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Colin Firth and more - but reviews called it "unimaginative" and said "the promised magnetism of the story [is] hardly found in the screen", which unfortunately is true of My Policeman as well.
HE SAW
Zanna had been desperate to watch this movie, nominally because she'd heard a lot of buzz about it, but presumably, and not so overtly, also because of Harry Styles. I hadn't heard any of the buzz and don't feel any great love for Styles, so I went in with low expectations, which were quickly exceeded. The movie was very good and I was quickly engrossed in its tale of a confused love triangle in two different eras. I had felt the movie to be not just entertaining but provocative and challenging of my moral positions. I felt an attachment to and sympathy for all the characters, none of whom were blameless, none of whom were blameable.
But then, as I watched the movie's emotional climax, I thought to myself, "This movie is objectively sad — harrowing in fact." I had enjoyed the majority of its nearly two-hour running time and had remained engaged throughout, despite generally believing two hours to be too long for a movie.
I took a sneaky look at Zanna to see if she was, as usual, crying. I thought she was and felt disappointed in myself that I wasn't, so I tried my hardest to, and for a brief moment, as I forced myself into deep empathy, I thought I would. I felt my eyes reddening, and I wished Zanna would look at me and see how in touch with my emotions I was. But that was as close as I could get. I was ashamed at the performativity of my attempted emotional response. I wondered why I wasn't sadder. I can't remember the last time I cried in a movie. If I was unable to cry like Zanna during a movie as objectively saddening as My Policeman, would I ever be able to enjoy a movie as much as her? I believed the answer to be no and therefore felt disappointed at myself, which is no way to feel during a movie. I wished I didn't feel that way. This was the beginning of an anxiety spiral that quickly ruined the whole experience. I can't blame the makers of My Policeman for my mental health issue, but the fact remains that theirs happened to be the movie I was watching at the time and it wasn't effective at stopping it.
My Policeman is now streaming on Prime Video.
