Harry Styles – formerly the one member of One Direction that anyone can remember – has now developed a movie sideline.
His track record may be small, once you take out all the rock videos, but he was perfectly fine in a small role in Dunkirk, and also in a bigger role in the recent Don’t Worry Darling.
So how is he as nearly the lead in My Policeman?
Photo: Screenshot
My Policeman has a pretty impressive cast for a comparatively low-budget film, set in two time periods on the English southeast coast.
Emma Corrin made their name playing Princess Diana in The Crown, while third point of the triangle, Patrick, is played by David Dawson, Alfred the Great in another TV series, The Last Kingdom.
My Policeman opens in the late 1990s, where married couple Marion and Tom have settled in unexciting retirement.
Their routine is broken when Marion brings the invalid Patrick to stay with them. Patrick’s had a stroke and needs constant care. Except Tom refuses to have anything to do with him. Time for a flashback…
A flashback 40 years in fact, to 1957, when the three first meet. Marion is a teacher, and Tom is a policeman. But they meet off-duty when Tom teaches Marion to swim, and Marion gives Tom some tips on good books.
And then Tom introduces Marion to Patrick.
Patrick works at the local art gallery. He met Tom when he called the police after an accident. The three hit it off, and most people assume that the dashing, educated Patrick is more suitable for Marion than the handsome but plodding Tom.
Where could this be going, we don’t wonder? It may come as a surprise to conservative Marion that Patrick is gay, but hardly to us.
It’s clear that there’s more to the relationship of Patrick and Tom than Tom in particular wants anyone to know.
The point being – as modern-day LGBTQ-friendly audiences may need reminding – that that relationship was not only frowned on in the late 50s but was illegal - and jailable.
However, for toffs like Patrick, there were always ways around it. Unlike for members of the police force.
The 1957 story – which is most of My Policeman – sees Emma Corrin, David Dawson and Harry Styles play out the rather common fifties story of someone in denial – “passing” as they used to say.
Tom and Marion get married, but Patrick is always there, and passion is something that won’t be denied.
Flash forward forty years, and Tom, Marion and Patrick are now in the safe hands of Linus Roache, Gina McKee and Rupert Everett.
Everett in particular as Patrick offers an object lesson in what a good actor can do with virtually no lines, just an expressive face.
The actors, once again, are the best things about My Policeman, currently available on Prime Video – the old Amazon Prime.
It’s essentially a familiar story, with rather a big hole in the middle. What happens in the forty years between events is barely touched on.
As for the big question “Can Harry Styles act?” – yes he can, if by “act” you mean “stand here and say these lines”.
The role of Tom, in many ways, is tailor-made for him – someone ordinary who’s still so attractive he manages to bowl over two people at once.
Not the same as the performances of everyone else in the film, but they’re merely actors. Harry Styles is - or could be – a movie star.
