The headlines:
Who will star in My Policeman?
Harry Styles, Emma Corrin and David Dawson are taking the lead for the decades-spanning romance.
What is My Policeman about?
The plot follows a school teacher and a policeman (Corrin and Styles) whose lives are upended when they meet a charming curator (Dawson), and the two men begin a passionate – and dangerous – affair.
Is My Policeman based on a true story?
The film is based on Bethan Roberts’s novel My Policeman, though the 2012 tome was itself inspired by the life of EM Forster, who’d been in a long-term relationship with a policeman while also being friends with his wife.
When and where will My Policeman be released?
My Policeman will be in cinemas from 21 October and available to stream on Amazon Prime Video from 4 November.
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My Policeman
By Michelle Ruiz
The details:
It’s based on a sensitive, sweeping novel
My Policeman is an adaptation of Bethan Roberts’s 2012 novel of the same name which centres on Marion (played here by The Crown’s Emma Corrin) and Tom (Styles), a school teacher and policeman, who meet and fall in love on the Brighton coast in the ’50s. Enter Patrick (David Dawson), a curator who has moved to Brighton to recover from the death of a previous lover and soon develops feelings for Tom. The men embark on a passionate affair – in spite of the fact that homosexuality is illegal. For a while, the threesome embrace their lives as a ménage a trois, until jealousy shatters their arrangement. Fast forward to the ’90s, and the frail Patrick reenters the lives of the now married Marion and Tom, with predictably dramatic consequences.
Harry Styles in costume on the set of My Policeman.
Karwai Tang,
The book weaves together Marion’s confessional narration with Patrick’s, as both battle their inner demons and the overwhelming desire that keeps leading them back to Tom. The latter also highlights the restrictions placed on gay men at the time and the harsh realities they could be faced with if their private lives became public. In an article published in The Guardian in 2012, Roberts explained that the story was inspired by the life of novelist EM Forster, who had been in a long-term relationship with the policeman Bob Buckingham and was friends with his wife, May.
“While living with May, Buckingham pledged his half days off, and other hours during the week, to Forster,” she wrote. “May, although jealous and often difficult, refused to listen when [warned] that Forster was about to break up her marriage. Perhaps she, like Buckingham, stood to gain from what Forster could offer: not only money (he often gave financial gifts), but also entrance into the life of the cultural elite.” When Forster suffered a series of strokes later in life, May cared for him.
David Dawson, Emma Corrin and Harry Styles in My Policeman.
The first stills sent the internet into a tailspin
On 9 June, Amazon released the first two stills from the film. One featured a sun-drenched Styles and Corrin as Tom and Marion, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes while in a pool, while the other showed the pair in a gallery with David Dawson’s Patrick, who appears to be talking them through a piece of art. While the former is joyous, the tension between the trio is apparent in the latter.
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