Harry's forbidden love triangle in new film My Policeman

2022-10-29

Harry’s forbidden love triangle: A gay policeman marries to keep his secret safe in 50s Brighton in Harry Styles’s new film. But there are shocking consequences…

Harry Styles and Emma Corrin open up about representation in My Policeman
The film explores a time where homosexuality was illegal, in 1950s Brighton
The new movie is based on Bethan Roberts’s 2012 bestseller of the same name

In a small seaside town in the 1990s, retired policeman Tom (Linus Roache) and his former schoolteacher wife Marion (Gina McKee) are rubbing along in a good enough marriage. And if it hasn’t exactly been the fiery affair they might’ve dreamed of, well, they’re old enough to know that life can be full of disappointments.

Old passions are stirred up though when an estranged friend, museum curator Patrick (Rupert Everett), unexpectedly reappears in their lives, all but crippled by a devastating stroke. Patrick is the man who, 40 years before, first won Tom’s love – and then broke his heart.

Marion is ready to forgive and forget, but Tom’s feelings are much more complicated.

This is how My Policeman, the new film starring pop star turned actor Harry Styles and The Crown’s Emma Corrin, begins. It soon moves back to Brighton in the 1950s, a time when homosexuality was illegal.

A young Tom (Styles), well-meaning but repressed, meets a young Marion (Corrin) and quickly falls in love with her, or as far as he is able to.

A young Tom (Harry Styles, pictured), well-meaning but repressed, meets a young Marion (Corrin) and quickly falls in love with her, or as far as he is able to, in My Policeman

He soon introduces her to his friend Patrick, a little older and thrillingly worldly wise, and the three become good friends. At least, they do until Marion realises the exact nature of Tom and Patrick’s relationship.

Because despite her love for Tom, she finds the idea of homosexuality repellent – a prejudice that eventually leads to devastating consequences for all three.

The film is based on Bethan Roberts’s 2012 bestseller of the same name, which in turn is based on the real-life love triangle between writer EM Forster and married policeman Robert Buckingham. His wife May shared her husband with Forster, cared for the author after his stroke, and gave his friendship with Buckingham a veneer of respectability.

Many gay men in mid-20th century Britain took such steps in order to keep their relationships secret, and the film shows this through Patrick’s friendship with Marion.

What sets My Policeman apart from other such tales is the thread of affection that runs between all three characters. ‘There’s a lot of real friendship between them all,’ says Harry.

‘Despite all the complexity and the deceiving nature of the triangle, it’s still there.

‘Tom’s love for Marion is real and Tom’s love for Patrick is real, and Marion and Patrick are actually very good friends so there’s real love there too. It was important not to have everything be so black and white in terms of, “Well, you’ve wronged me and that means I don’t like you any more.” It’s not really how the world works, or how human beings work.’

What sets My Policeman apart from other such tales is the thread of affection that runs between all three characters

Harry says Tom is very firmly of his time. ‘He was born into a very small world, and if you’re born into that environment, you know where the edge of your world is. Tom’s a curious man, and when he meets Patrick it sparks his curiosity. He realises that the edge of his world is a little further away than Brighton.’

In real life, Emma Corrin identifies as queer and non- binary and prefers the use of the gender-neutral pronoun ‘they’. Nevertheless, Emma feels compassion for bigoted Marion.

‘The decisions Marion makes intrigued me, because I really had to justify that to myself,’ Emma says. ‘I related to the complexities of these young people living and working in a strange time and trying to figure out who they are.’

One thing that is never in doubt though is that, whatever her actions, Marion undoubtedly loves Tom – and fiercely too.

‘She’s so convinced it’s going to work, and so convinced he feels exactly the same way about her that she feels about him,’ says Emma.

‘And then when she discovers the truth about him and Patrick, her anger isn’t really to do with their relationship – which is something she doesn’t really understand – but with the fact that she was wrong. The anger fuels her to do what she does, and that’s what she has to live with for the rest of her life.’

For Rupert Everett, the film carries a message of hope. ‘It’s a fascinating journey to go on, to move back from modern homosexuality to 1950s homosexuality and see how far we’ve come,’ he says.

‘It’s a great opportunity to see how much things have moved on. This is essentially what makes you leave the cinema with hope, because we’re constantly changing. It’s very exciting.’

My Policeman is available on Amazon Prime Video from Friday.

Animal magic: Meet the loyal rottweilers who flee with Jeff Bridges’s ex-CIA agent in The Old Man

Jeff Bridges may be the biggest star in action thriller The Old Man, but he’s not the most pampered. The five rottweiler dogs who play his character’s two pets Dave and Carol had bone-shaped inflatable swimming pools on set in Los Angeles and enjoyed daily bathes.

‘They love the water, and getting them relaxed for the scenes they had to shoot was vital,’ says their trainer and owner Sarah Clifford.

Keeping them happy was very important as Dave and Carol are integral to the action.

‘In the book the series is based on, my character [ex-CIA agent] Dan Chase flees from the secret services in the company of his two large dogs so it had to happen,’ says Jeff. ‘There’s a bond between the man and his animals.’

Creed, Cain, Freya and Finnelly were used for the bulk of the scenes and Daisy did the most energetic action sequences. ‘She had a bite like no other,’ laughs Jeff.

The dogs live at Sarah’s ranch in California, which is also home to 11 other dogs plus horses, a goat and a pig. Thousands of hours were devoted to their training.

Sarah attached a squeaky toy to a stuntman’s arm, added the scent of a treat, and encouraged the dogs to attack until it was second nature. Cain was taught to gently apply pressure to the neck of a stuntman for scenes in which Dave and Carol protect Dan from baddies.

Once on set, the animals had black and tan colouring added to their fur to look the part.

Jeff became very attached to his co-stars on set.

‘They’ve all had to overcome the odds. Finnelly had a tough journey from Budapest, where he was rescued. Freya was a breeding dog who didn’t socialise with humans, and Creed was days away from being euthanised because they couldn’t find him an owner. From that to the red carpet at The Old Man premiere is quite a journey!’

The Old Man is on Disney+.

Tim Oglethorpe

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