Musicians making their leap to the big screen is not just a common occurrence, but an increasingly popular one. Dua Lipa is set to mark their next career move with the baby steps of a leading role alongside Henry Cavill. David Bowie was the expert of leading performances before gently heading toward the occasional pop-up supporting role or cameo. Harry Styles, though, it is safe to say he has neither the chops for acting nor the prose for songwriting. His light bop charm is all he is good for, and despite the David Cronenberg orientation of the music video for Music from a Sushi Restaurant, his love for the movies does not transfer to a skill for them. Don’t Worry Darling proved that, My Policeman merely supports it.
Another piece that should have proved fluid for Styles’ craft and rewarding for those around him. He is very much the reason this story is being told, his presence alone is enough to give studios that push to move out a project with a riskier or less-renowned turnaround. Michael Grandage tears through his work and looks for the respite to be found in the tender throes of a romantic feature. Despite his consistency in adapting his own work, and credit where it is due, it is difficult to do that because it almost always means diluting or changing the project, Grandage is the shining light that flows through My Policeman. He has an articulate understanding not just of his own work but of how it can make an appearance on the screen.
Dreadful it may be to pin the problems of a feature onto one person, it is clear where weaknesses lie. It is not in the articulate and reasoned introduction with the excellent Gina McKee and Rupert Everett. Nor is it in the charmed work of David Dawson and Emma Corrin. Two periods displayed, one struggling more than the other. My Policeman is a feature that showcases the passage of time not just in its youthful characters cementing a new lease of life for themselves in the later stages of living on the coast, but with a lack of solemnity needed to power through further. 45 Years adapted that tremendously and heart-wrenchingly so. My Policeman just feels watered down and as though it is going through the motions, hoping to get to the part where the face of the movie, who is also its biggest problem, can romance whoever else is on screen.
There is an inherent difficulty throughout My Policeman, a feature that has all the right moves in the way of its fluid opportunities for period piece settings but fails to adapt to them fully. It does so in a way that feels sickly or encompassing of those troubling misrepresentations of what made the period popular. Despite that, My Policeman relies almost entirely on the chemistry between Dawson and Styles’ early period work. They are, as expected, a half-and-half battle. One is tremendous in their adaptation of guilt and grief, and the other is just finding their footing. Whether they find that footing is an entirely different story. Emotionally raw in all the right ways but fumbled more often than not, even when its ending is as emotionally manipulative as it is shakily accepting of decades of wrongdoing put right by a simple taxi ride to a new beginning.
