Critics do not have many positive things to say about singer and actor Harry Styles’ new LGBT film.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, “My Policeman” follows “three young people — policeman Tom (Harry Styles), teacher Marion (Emma Corrin), and museum curator Patrick (David Dawson) — as they embark on an emotional journey in 1950s Britain.”
The description continues, “Flashing forward to the 1990s, Tom (Linus Roache), Marion (Gina McKee), and Patrick (Rupert Everett) are still reeling with longing and regret, but now they have one last chance to repair the damage of the past. Based on the book by Bethan Roberts, director Michael Grandage carves a visually transporting, heart-stopping portrait of three people caught up in the shifting tides of history, liberty, and forgiveness.”
The film will be available to stream on Amazon Prime on November 4.
Watch the trailer for the film below:
The reviews have been pouring in and critics do not appear thrilled with the film.
The Guardian’s Guy Lodge penned his review titled, “Even Harry Styles’ presence can’t make My Policeman’s discussion of queerness interesting.”
Lodge argued the “drab, turgid finished film feels scarcely less bland and timid than the compromised, straight-angled prestige gay dramas of less liberated times.”
He continues, “What could be a rather ruthless, lacerating story of ruinous self-denial and homophobic betrayal instead emerges as a one-note study of gay martyrdom, one so narrowly focused on queer repression that queer expression never gets a look-in.”
Lodge goes on to claim the film, cinematically, is “as flat and grey as the drizzly south coast seascapes to which the characters’ older incarnations are confined: one wonders if the Styles stans who have been cheerleading the film for months will be surprised by how much screen time is given over to Gina McKee staring glumly out of picture windows.”
Katie Walsh of The Wrap suggests it is “just the troubling muddle of the script and direction that leaves one wanting much, much more” from the film.
The Independent’s Jessie Thompson takes issue with Styles’ acting.
“In My Policeman, Harry Styles plays an officer of the law in 1950s Brighton – which is ironic, because his acting is criminally bad. He does not have to say anything, but anything he does say will be delivered as though he read it on a piece of paper five minutes previously,” Thompson wrote.
The review argues Styles’s presence is “leaden,” adding, “The accent is all over the place. And he doesn’t have the technique to convey whatever ideas he may have had about his character.”
Similarly, Styles did not receive overwhelmingly positive reviews for his acting in “Don’t Worry Darling.”
A review published by The Atlantic suggested Styles is “perhaps the movie’s biggest issue beyond its underbaked screenplay; he’s an oddly flat presence despite his status as a global superstar.”
