Harry Styles is nothing to sing about in My Policeman
Opposite David Dawson and a terrific Emma Corrin, Harry Styles is out-acted at every turn in this tale of a dysfunctional love triangle
Film Reviews harry styles
Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel Anna Karenina is referenced early on in My Policeman, setting the audience up for a grand and tragic love story. Eventually, we arrive at one in which both obsession and betrayal play equal parts. Yet the journey there is rather choppy, fragmented into two time frames that don’t always come together. The transitions are rather awkward; just as the viewer starts to get invested in one story, off we go to the other one.
Global pop star Harry Styles, in his second movie this fall after Don’t Worry Darling, is the eponymous lawman. His name’s Tom, but whose policeman is he anyway? In the 1950s he meets a teacher called Marion (Emma Corrin) and a museum curator, Patrick (David Dawson). He marries one and has a passionate affair with the other. Since it’s Britain in the 1950s where homosexuality is outlawed, it’s easy to guess who he has the affair with and who he’s legally bound to.
Forty years in the future, the lives of three are still entwined. Patrick (played by Rupert Everett in this section) is ill and mostly confined to bed. He comes to live with Tom (Linus Roache) and Marion (Gina McKee), who seem to be still married, though they hardly talk to each other. The story of how they met and became friends as young bright things gets intercut with the story of their hollow and defeated older selves. They almost have no connection with what they used to be. The film wants the audience to be mad at the law that prevented these promising young people from flourishing. Yet to do that, it has to be alive with character and story. Unfortunately, it never becomes anything more than a by-the-numbers retelling of a well-known novel.
Adapted by Ron Nyswaner from Bethan Roberts’ novel and directed by Michael Grandage, My Policeman sees both its writer and director playing in familiar grounds. As he has done in Philadelphia (1993) and Freeheld (2015), Nyswaner tells a story of queer people facing discrimination and adversity within their community. Freeheld even had a cop as the lead character, albeit an American in New Jersey played by Julianne Moore. Grandage, who’s primarily known for his stage work in the UK, mounts another handsome, stilted period piece cast with well-known faces like his previous film Genius (2016).
The film tries to conjure the 1950s with the costumes and production design. However, it ends up conjuring the stuffiness of the 1950s. Everything looks handsome, the sets, the clothes, and, of course, the three lead actors—but the story remains maudlin. The elements are big—life-changing passion, an illicit taboo affair, discriminatory laws—but the film remains small.
There are moments when these momentous emotions feel palpable, like when the three lead characters visit a museum and stand together in front of a painting by J.M.W. Turner. Marion stands between the two men, yet all three merge into a ball of tension and desire. Something ignites and becomes palpable to the audience—for a bit, anyway. But that spark is soon deflated, and we are back to indifferently staged scenes and stale dialogue.
The main attraction here is, of course, superstar Styles, as the object of desire and the romantic lead. Nyswaner’s screenplay sets him up well with other characters talking about his “innocence” and “curiosity,” calling him “too handsome for a policeman.” Grandage’s camera tries to invoke sensuality by emphasizing the line of his shoulders, or a wisp of his hair falling over his eyes. For all that, though, he’s stiff and mannered when he should be fluid and engaging. As the marriage sours and he’s called upon to act opposite Corrin in heavy confrontations, he’s completely out of his depth and unable to match her at all. Corrin skillfully shoulders the dramatic parts, becoming the most watchable actor in the film. Dawson—and particularly Everett—are called upon to play a particularly dour character, another forlorn homosexual. For a film that’s crying against injustice, it unfortunately trots out a 1950s cliche.
Completely unnecessary are the 1990s cutaways. That they are given so much screen time weakens the film even more, as nothing much happens. Marion smokes and looks concerned, Paul is bedridden and tries to steal a smoke, and Tom avoids both. McKee and Roache cannot convey a couple realistically. Perhaps because all they are called upon to do is glower at each other.
My Policeman’s ambitions are grand. Anna Karenina, really? None are realized, and instead of a classic tragic romance, it ends up being a turgid, airless concoction. Styles’ fans might find something to admire since they’ll get to gaze at their idol. But the rest of us should avoid looking.
70 Comments
Give ‘em hell, Harry!
“Gi’ ‘em ‘ell’ Arry!”
Chim-chim-cheroo, motherfuckers!
I think Styles is discovering in a very public way that it’s really difficult to be a part-time dramatic actor.
I kinda feel bad for him. It’s really clear that the industry really wants to make him a movie star, and he just might not be up to it.
I feel bad for him because people just want to talk shit about him for their own personal idiot reasons. Not true. He is up to it. He needs better, well-developed characters to play. So far he’s played an awkward side part in Alice’s story in DWD, and another sad, struggling character in a story told from the point of view of 2 other individuals in My Policeman. Neither of his roles were very fleshed out; just choppy bits in mediocre movies.
The argument could be made that if he can’t handle a supporting role, and if he can’t give a smaller character depth and resonance, that he doesn’t deserve a lead role. But I’m not even sure that applies to Styles because his role in DWD was pretty significant, if not a lead role, and he’s definitely a lead in My Policeman. I couldn’t describe either role as “awkward side parts.” They’re central to the narrative. And he didn’t elevate the character in either instance.The Harry stans really want his acting career to happen, and I get it. That’s how fandom works. It’s not necessarily rational. But objectively, in these two roles, he’s not made a very strong case that he’s worthy of being given lead parts or roles with more depth and complexity. He’s been pretty flat, and I don’t think that’s necessarily all the fault of the scripts or the direction. Some of it is on the actor. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Styles was bad in My Policeman or Don’t Worry Darling. But he was noticeably not as good as the other actors around him. Put him in a scene with Florence Pugh or Emma Corrin and he couldn’t hold his own. You could see him “acting.” My takeaway from both was that if someone not named Harry Styles had brought that level of ability to their audition for these parts, they would not have gotten past round one of casting. I think Styles could potentially become a good actor, but it will take work on his part, time studying the craft and figuring out how acting for a camera works.
it’s a grand tradition.
Madonna might have some really helpful insight and be a potentially good mentor. Just let me know and I can make the connection.
Her advice was make a movie where you drip candle wax on Willem Dafoe.
Not all singers can shine as effortlessly as actors as, say, Elvis or Mick Jagger.
Or Sinatra.
Sinatra ruled though. He was great in From Here to Eternity.
And The Manchurian Candidate, he was tremendous in that too.
Yes!!!
Elvis acted just fine in his first few films, before the Colonel chained him to shit directors like William Beaudine. Certainly more charming than this or Freejack.
Exactly! Who could have seen this coming?But seriously, Dunkirk was obviously a head fake since he really wasn’t asked to do much in that role.
Or Mariah Carey or Vanilla Ice.
I’m assuming your being sarcastic because plenty of people thought Elvis made shit movies, and Mick Jagger didn’t get rave reviews either.
It really shows that he didn’t even spend a couple years as a thinly fictionalized version of himself on Nick or Disney.
“A crowd of people turned away…”
He didn’t turn them on…
He’s following in the footsteps of Justin Timberlake. He can act, but not well enough to be a leading man, and thanks to his fame, that’s all anyone is casting him as.
Timberlake did it right by sticking with lighter roles. He’s great in The Social Network and Bad Teacher because he lets himself be the butt of the joke, sort of the same way he ingratiated himself to audiences by mocking his own boy band history with the Lonely Island shorts. Granted I admittedly haven’t seen everything he’s done so maybe he’s tried heavier fare, but based on what I have seen he’s handled himself well. Styles is just out of place in these roles.
Harry needs better-developed roles to play. His characters have been choppy, awkward side parts in the other characters stories.
Not true.
Harry’s acting is fine. So many assholes are just talking shit to try to knock him down because he’s such a beloved rockstar at the peak of his career.
I seriously doubt that. He was widely praised for his work in Dunkirk, his first role. And as a person he has such an infectious positivity that the public’s default attitude towards him is favorable. He’s spent his life as a singer, it’s hardly surprising he might be out of his depth alongside professional actors.
Someone needs to take this kid’s movie career away from whatever morons are running it now.
Use Sinatra or Harry Connick Jr. as role models. Get him parts where he has nothing to do at first except be charming and handsome.Give him a heist or conman movie (like Sinatra’s Ocean’s 11) or a good old romcom or make him the doomed wisecracking partner in an action movie. (Connick.) He had a good start with the Dunkirk thing. Connick’s first role was Memphis Belle. Connick has got some chops and has done the “dark side of Southern Gentleman” pretty well a few times. But Styles isn’t there yet.
This is actually all really good advice, imo. I don’t want to see the cute, flirty, charming guy in the kinds of dour and depressing roles he keeps taking.
The thing is, maybe he wants these kind of roles. People mercilessly ripped on him for the whole “it feels like a movie” thing from the Don’t Worry Darling press conference, but if he wants to go after roles that feel like actual cinema, more power to him. There are worse sins than punching above your weight class.
Copycat reboot!
That would also let him learn about acting and potentially improve to the point where he could be a leading man.
There’s an even more recent example that they could be following: Lady Gaga. She’s done pretty well for herself in her first two outings.
Lady Gaga went to the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute for a decade starting at age 7, before she got into NYU’s Tish Schools of Arts at 17. While always, obviously, having an inclination towards music, she originally wanted to be an actor, and has substantial training in the craft from a very young age. So not really the equivalent of what Styles is trying to do.
I would argue, though, that Sinatra was a pretty good actor all along, although he did mostly just light musicals until From Here to Eternity.
Uhhhh, Ocean’s 11 was 1960, 7 years after Sinatra had already won an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity in 1953, and by that time Sinatra had been acting since 1941. So not really the right comparison.
People who start sentences with “uhhhh” should be ear-raped by Satan
Sorry. That was gentlest way I could conceive of to point out that a portion of your take was factually wrong.
That phrase needs to be permanently removed from your vocabulary
I workshopped it for a bit and finally decided that the “ear-raped by Satan in Hell while he eats Fig Newtons” was too much.
Heck Starfox was a great choice. Smiling doofy superhero in a big ensemble thing, he’d be fine.
Thank you! I agree that there are morons running this show. And I also think that Harry definitely needs better roles that he can really develop characters for. He’s a talented guy who wholeheartedly commits to whatever he’s working on, music or otherwise. I think he’ll be great with some more experience. I just wish people would stop talking shit just to try to knock him down.
I haven’t seen this or the other film which shall remain unnamed lest we get yet another article about it…but is Styles’ popularity the only reason he got these roles? I haven’t read anything that states “Styles’ performance is worth all this fuss.”
Critics were a bit more unnecessarily warm on his Dunkirk performance. I think that + his popularity + his willingness to do smaller films that likely need his name for financing all helps him.
If you type Don’t Worry Darling three times in a comment section, the AV Club will automagically generate an article.
All decent actors are alike, but every terrible actor is terrible in his own way.
I am getting that tattooed on my back.
I will never get tired of variations of that quote.
Not sure this project would have been worth the time of a better actor, though
Agree. Not every movie can be Far From Heaven.
“Are you my policeman? Are you? Yes you are! Yes you are!”
“Because he’s MY butlerpoliceman!”
[laugh track, roll credits]
“Belvedere was a good cop!!!”
It’s almost like he’s getting roles because he’s a famous singer, rather than his acting ability!Nah, couldn’t be.
Nobody likes to look at beautiful people, so it can’t be that.
Is Styles that bad? Never seen him in anything, but I’m surprised at how lambasted he’s getting. Don’t remember the last time critics were so unkind to someone coming from the pop star world to acting.
“Don’t remember the last time critics were so unkind to someone coming from the pop star world to acting.”What a bizarre thing to say, it’s not an event that happens often so I don’t understand your point.
In no particular order off the top of my head: Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Rihanna, Ice Cube, Ice T, Eminem, Tupac, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Garfunkel, Sinatra, Timberlake, Cher, Madonna, Whitney, Queen Latifah, Streisand, Hudson, J-Lo, Elvis. And there are way way more.
I think it’s because Styles is trying to cut straight to leading man prestige drama roles without doing the work beforehand. Most pop stars turned actors take supporting roles at best in action/comedy/musical films when they start out, and if they are asked to do something more dramatic, they stick to what they know (like Ice Cube or Eminem).
“BUT I AM A BRRRRRRRRRRRITISH LADY!”
I legitimately loved Don’t Worry Darling and fully believe that we will be flooded with thinkpieces about how actually really good it is in about 5 years. Styles was far from the best performer but he held up his end.
I’m just wondering how Olivia Wilde will connect this to her struggles as a female auteur.
I’m sure she’ll be in a little “check these out” dress when she does.
This is weird and bad.
I’m wondering how The A.V. Club will connect this to Olivia Wilde’s struggles as a female auteur.
I’m sure it’ll be filled with poor grammar and misspelled names.
Is it weird that I’m most disappointed for Rupert Everett?Many of his career stumbles have been of his own making in a lot of ways, but his dramatic work was always extremely strong, and there were early reports this might put him in awards contention.
I’m dreading any future involvement this vacuum of personality and charm has with the MCU, given his rather lacklustre debut as Eros at the end of Eternals (oh, sorry, spoiler alert).
The film wants the audience to be mad at the law that prevented these promising young people from flourishing. Yet to do that, it has to be alive with character and story.I mean, no, I can think this movie has poor characters & story and still be very mad at those laws.