Amazon Studios premiered today (October 21st, 2022) in the United States, My Policeman, a film directed by Michael Grandage. My Policeman was released for the first time at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11th, 2022. The movie will be soon available on Amazon’s streaming platform, Prime Video, specifically on November 4th. The movie received mixed reviews from critics, the direction and the screenplay were also criticized. In this movie, Harry Styles is back on the screen, being the main character of the movie. In fact, critics did not praise his performance during the movie.
The film set in the 1950s, narrates the story of a gay policeman, Tom Burgess (Harry Styles) who marries a schoolteacher, Marion Taylor (Emma Corrin). Then, Burgess starts a secret relationship with Patrick Hazlewood (David Dawson). The secret they have could be a threat to ruin everything they have. The film has a small cast including Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, David Dawson, Linus Roache (Old Tom Burgess), Gina McKee (Old Marion Taylor), Rupert Everett (Old Patrick Hazlewood) and Kadiff Kirwan (Nigel).
The project was announced back in September, 2020 alleging that Amazon Studios would be making a film soon. Grandage was chosen to direct the screenplay written by Roy Nyswaner. For starters, the main protagonists were going to be both Harry Styles and Lily James (known for her performance as Cinderella in 2015), yet there was not an agreement with James, so she left in 2021, this is when Corrin arrived to the project as James’ replacement. In March, 2021, David Dawson, Linus Roache and Rupert Everett joined the cast of the film. Kadiff Kirwan was the last actor to be added in the project, he joined in June, 2021.
The filming of the movie began in April, 2021 in locations such as London, Brighton and Hove. As mentioned before, the film will have a limited theatrical release today, and then it could be watched on Amazon Prime Video.
Commercially the movie could be a success, but cinematographically there are many negative critics talking about the direction, screenplay and Styles’ performance. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 41% out of 100% with 69 reviews. On the other hand, IMDb gave it a 10 out of 10, but the difference is that IMDb criticizes from a more commercial and non-cinematic point of view, which would be the opposite of Rotten Tomatoes. Metracritic gave the film a 49% out of 100% based on 22 critics, the site called it mixed or average reviews. Yet most of the reviews goes to Styles’ performance since the singer just started acting in 2017 in Dunkirk.
Other sites (including magazines and newspapers such as Vanity Fair and The Guardian) also contributed their opinion regarding the film and their criticism did not make it a better situation. In The Guardian, Benjamin Lee gave it 2 out of 5 saying “isn’t exactly a washout but it’s not exactly much of anything, a disappointingly drab and stridently straightforward love triangle saga overstuffed with furtive glances and maudlin moping while underpowered by a blank lead performance”. All the critics who have had to review the film, most have written negative reviews which are unfavorable for the Amazon Studios project and the main flop in these reviews is Harry Styles due to his poor performance.
Although the movie has not had good reviews, this will not stop the audience from watching the film, with the simple fact that many will want to watch it because the protagonist is Styles, who is currently one of the most influential singers or the most popular of the music industry. At this point some people are not interested in what the experts have said about the project.
Andrea Rich
