My Policeman (Queer Adaptation)

In which Jazza and Rowan respectfully discuss Harry Styles, his bum, and his acting. 

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This is a queer movie watch party for your ears, hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we take a look at the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to comedy classics - Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things queer on the silver screen!

New episodes every other Thursday.

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Production

- Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John

- Editor: Julia Schifini

- Executive Producer: Multitude

- Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd

 

JAZZA:  Hello everyone. Before we kick off, I just want to say a really big thank you to Jennifer and Toby for supporting us on our highest patron tier, Rainbow Parent. We'd like you very much on with the show that.

[theme]

JAZZA:  Welcome to the Queer Movie Podcast, celebrating the best—

ROWAN:  And worst —

JAZZA:  In LGBTQ+ cinema one glorious genre at a time.

ROWAN:  I'm Rowan Ellis.

JAZZA:  And I am Jazza John.

ROWAN:  In each episode, we discuss a queer movie from a different genre of cinema.

JAZZA:  This episode genre is—

JAZZA&ROWAN:  Queer Adaptation.

JAZZA:  Hmm. Glorious. Today we're going to be talking about the latest manifestation of Harry Styles's locked-down hobby, acting with the film adaptation of the book by Bethan Roberts, My Policeman.

ROWAN:  But before we see if we can make this 1950s trouble work, Jazza, what's the gayest thing that you've done since the last episode?

JAZZA:  Well, we just had Halloween. 

ROWAN:  We indeed.

JAZZA:  And Halloween is of course gay Christmas, and I hate dressing up, but because I have some friends who are professional drag queens. They make—so I came up with a hugely original never before done idea of being a lesbian Velma. Because les—um— lesbian is now canonically Velma.

ROWAN:  Hmm. Stunning.

JAZZA:  But not only was I lesbian Velma. So I had the orange turtleneck and everything. But I also decided to make it slutty because that makes it, that's a gay Halloween costume.

ROWAN:  Happy Halloween.

JAZZA:  Isn't it? As I was looking around H&M, as one does when you are last-minute shopping for a Halloween costume. There were a surprising number of turtleneck options, some woolen, some made of some stretchy fabric that definitely isn't biodegradable. Among these was a beautiful extra small, stretchy crop top turtleneck in the appropriate color.

ROWAN:  Thank goodness it was stretchy. 

JAZZA:  And—Thank goodness it was stretchy. Luckily enough my AAA cup for boobs beautifully fills out 

ROWAN:  That broad pectorals could not be contained with a nonstretchy, extra smooth top

JAZZA:  100% And I sat there looking great, freezing my ass off in the smoking area of this party that I went to. Draped in the lesbian flag that I had purchased as part of my outfit.

ROWAN:  Rude of Velma to not wear a coat canonically.

JAZZA:I can confirm that polyester pride flags are not the best thing at maintaining heat and maintaining warmth in British autumn. But they—I've learned my lesson.

ROWAN:  Good to know.

JAZZA:  And I will probably make the same area again. How about you? What was your gay thing?

ROWAN:  You know, why not? I'll do— Halloween is inherently gay Christmas. So I will do my Halloween costume as well. So I dressed up as a pirate in Disneyland Paris, and it was a blue pirate and so I think pirates are gay because obviously, you know Our Flag Means Death Black Sails is simply true. But also—

JAZZA:  Elizabeth Swan of Swan as—

ROWAN:  As the Swan, the bisexual awakening for many and so that alone is is gay. But also because I was in Disney I decided, and I was blue. I decided that I was a member of the pirate gang from Descendants, which is run by Ursula's daughter. And as we all know, Ursula is a drag queen. So it came full circle. Everything was very gay and it was exactly the perfect temperature of costume to wear because I overheat very easily. And it turns out when you're doing like a historic party thing that isn't just Lottie, you have like the pirate shirt but also the dress, but also the corset. Yeah, I simply chose a character who wore layers.

JAZZA:  Much smarter, I mean in many ways.

ROWAN:  Classic practical lesbian over here.

JAZZA:  Yeah yo—you're just layers upon gay, upon gay, upon gay of like adult Disney gay in a practical outfit that also has clear undertones. Really high-quality Ro, good job.

ROWAN:  Thank you.

[theme]

JAZZA:  In this episode, we are going to first talk about the main man, Harry Styles, and how his locked-down project of becoming a serious film actor, uh is—is developing. How's that going, Harry? And then I'm also going to be giving a little bit of a snapshot into what 1950s gay life was like. as this is indeed a period piece.

ROWAN:  We will then be reviewing the plot and splitting it as always into three acts. As such we will be spoiling all of these movies. So if you would not like to be spoiled before you watch it. It is currently available on Amazon Prime. So pause this  uh, have a little watch and then you can come back when you're ready.

JAZZA:  Very good. Welcome back for everybody who did trot off. Without further ado, let's centrally poke each other in the neck and review, My Policeman.

[theme]

ROWAN:  Okay, so when we plan these episodes, we talk about like what potential contexts or ideas that surround the movie that we want to talk about, as well as the plot itself. And uh— it's difficult not to talk about Harry Styles here because I think that considering this was one of his first like major projects and acting. He's only really done four so far right? So he did like a bit part in Dunkirk, a little cameo in The Eternals, and then Don't Worry Darling which he wasn't originally meant to star in, and now this is his first like, it's me I'm Harry Styles doing acting raw.

JAZZA:  And is the lead role. 

ROWAN:  Yeah. 

JAZZA:  Well, one of the lead roles.

ROWAN:  Yeah one of the leads. And so I think that a lot of people were very interested in this maybe just for that reason purely alone, but I also think people are interested in it because Harry Styles, to a lot of people who like to power socially consume celebrities on the internet, is Schrodinger as queer. In that uh— he has a fandom that from the very beginning of him being in this boyband One Direction, don't know if you've heard of it, pretty underground. There was like speculation that he was in a relationship with one of his bandmates. There was speculation he was dating various other like male celebrities or public figures. And that has kind of continued onwards. And it has been fueled in those areas of the internet, I would say by the gender expression of some of Harry Styles's like outfits on tour or in like magazine shoots, things like that. So he's worn dresses and skirts, he's worn, like sequins and bows and like a lot of stuff that we don't necessarily consider traditionally masculine. And it's worth pointing out here that someone's gender expression does no—no links necessarily to their gender identity and or sexuality. But for a lot of people, this was like evidence of him engaging in queerness in some way.

JAZZA:  Groundbreaking insights Rowan as always. Ama— this has become so prominent. I went to the V&A fashioning masculinity exhibition and the dress that he wore in the Vogue photoshoot, the big fur-like frilly, puffy dress. Puffy is in like volumeness, not the other use of the word puffy. It is—it's that, it's like the final exhibit alongside Billy Porter's tuxedo dress and Bimini Bon Boulash's final look on the runway for the drag race into the UK.

ROWAN:  Stunning. Amazing.   Go and see it guys, It's worth it. And so there are definitely a lot of conversations around Harry Styles. But it's also part of a wider conversation, I think around these discussions of now that we're in a point at which some people do feel able to come out. Some people in the public eye do feel able to talk about their sexuality, their gender, and their gender identity, whereas before, it was totally impossible for anyone to do it. Now, because some people feel safe, there is this expectation from some people that everyone should do it, they have an obligation to do it or that this is something that they should be kind of pressured into doing. Because I think still, for a lot of people, the idea of like being out is linked to being honest and morally virtuous. And like all of these things, and then if you're not out, that it's somehow like a flaw in your character, or there is something like inherently deceptive about what you're doing. And that goes, I think, for both sexuality and gender in, in sort of slightly different ways. And we've seen most recently this come to like a really horrible head with Kit Connor of feeling like he has outed himself as bisexual, because he was getting so much harassment, for like various, various sides of this for being—for queer baiting, even though that's not the thing a real person can do, or for being deceptive or for like not coming out or you know, all of these things. And so this conversation around Harry Styles is like, within this backdrop of that, and he, as far as I know, has never said he's part of the LGBTQ+ community. He's—he's made these comments like, you've only publicly—sometimes people say, you've only publicly been with women, and I don't think I publicly been with anyone, which is not a yes, not a no kind of answer.

JAZZA:  It's also not a true like, he clearly has publicly been with women. Yeah.

ROWAN:  It's also you know, we have to acknowledge the fact that the way he's dressing in photoshoots, and on tour is not like some dude deciding to wear a dress. It's someone who has marketers, and stylists, and PR people and like career coaches, and a ton of people deciding what he's going to be wearing, rather than necessarily being an authentic representation of his own gender expression. And so with all of this light conversation in mind, he, as one of his first acting projects, decides to play the lead in a movie, in which he will be playing a gay man. Or at least a queer man, I think it's ambiguous in the text as to whether or not he has like, romantic and sexual feelings for—that his wife or whether it is purely a sort of like a loving, platonic meeting of minds type relationship. So, yes, that's kind of like the interesting Harry Styles backdrop to this. And I think it's particularly interesting that he's decided on this within all of this discussion to be a role that he's decided to play.

JAZZA:  And was going to be the first leading role that he played, because Don't worry Darling. he was parachuted in after Shia Labeouf didn't happen. 

ROWAN:  Yeah. And I think that for a lot of people, there's this—there's this idea of like, like I say, as queer, where Harry Styles is either a closeted or no—not interested in putting labels on a queer person who is taking this role, because it will allow him to express some element of queerness within his art openly as a character, rather than necessarily needing to like put it in his music or open up about it publicly as himself. Or he is a straight dude who has potentially exploited the queer audience he has, by never explicitly saying he's straight and then you know, dressing in a certain way, acting in certain roles that will give them fuel for these like conspiracy theories about him.

JAZZA:  And keep people talking about him.

ROWAN:  And keep people talking about him, right? And I—my general take on this is like, sure, either one of those might be true, but in trying to interrogate psychoanalyze, for someone to make a decision either way or, you know, be really angry at the idea it might be the latter and that he's manipulating people and exploiting people and stuff, we run the risk of in pressuring this person, ending up having to pressure other people within that space, including people like Kit Connor, who is Bi but not either, like, ready or interested or wanting to come out and use that word or discuss it publicly. And I—my personal feeling about it, is that it is never like, the justice you think you're doing in like outing, a straight person who's, like, potentially exploiting the community with their art, is never going to be worth the payoff, of like damaging actual queer people who are not openly queer, who need that support.

JAZZA:  Yeah, 100%. Like Kit, Connor is not the only person to have gone through this. 

ROWAN:  Not at all, just the most recent.

JAZZA:  Like, we've talked about the author of Simon, and uh.

ROWAN:  Hmm. Love Simon, Becky Albertalli. 

JAZZA:  Yeah, who went through a similar thing, going through lots of criticism?

ROWAN:  Yup.

JAZZA:  Writing back queer characters, and then felt forced to come out as well. And so yeah, it's like— it's a weird catch twenty-two to be in. Like there is a huge spectrum of ambiguity in terms of what is the Harry Styles phenomenon. And it's okay, that we don't know.

ROWAN:  Yeah. And so I think it's also important to conclude that any criticism we do with Harry Styles's acting, is not driven by any of this background discourse, and is, in fact, an extremely objective observation by two people watching a movie with a dude in it, who arguably is not a great actor.

JAZZA:  He's not a great actor, I don't feel like I have to put the word arguably in front of it. There's been enou— there have been enough other people who've said that this isn't a fantastic performance. And oh, boy, is uh, is he out of his depth.

ROWAN:  And also, I think it's important at this point, to point out that like this movie has been and always was going to be taken over by the discussion around the fact that it's like Harry Styles's like lead role breakers. I would also argue that in Don't Worry Darling, he's not really a character.

JAZZA:  Well, Harry in this one, Harry Styles's name, appears in the opening credits before the name of the movie. 

ROWAN:  Oooh, interesting. But it's also worth noting, and is in this movie. For example, as well, who— they are a queer actor themselves. I mean, Rupert Everett, obviously, as well, who famously has talked about a lack of roles coming to him after he came out as gay. That's something he's talked about a lot. And he is fantastic in this movie. And so there's just that—there's like other—there are actual queer people in this movie who are playing these roles. And I would argue, you know, maybe let down by the direction and the writing and like, the things around them, but like as performances are putting in lovely performances, and sometimes like very excellent ones.

JAZZA:  I did a quick Google when I can't confirm David Dawson, who plays the younger Rupert Everett, he plays Patrick who's also a gay man. All of the queers were together.

ROWAN:  They're here. So that's kind of the I guess, context around it like meta context of what's going on. But—

JAZZA:  Schrodinger's queer.

ROWAN:  Schrodinger's queer, but Jazza, also, I know that you want to talk about the like, more historical context of when this is set because it does give a backdrop to the very like, tense dramatic, secretive story—love story that happens within the movie. 

JAZZA:  Yeah. And I actually think this is one of the triumphs of this. Triumph maybe big word. One of the better bits of this movie is the depiction of what it's like to be in the underground gay male scene in Brighton in the 1950s. So the 1950s were a particularly wrought time to be— especially a gay man, because of the kind of like a spinoff of the lavender poll, which was like the red pill in the United States. Some individuals who defected to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, ended up being outed as members of the LGBT community in the UK. There were a couple of notable ones of this that were talked about widely in the press, Guy Burgess and Don McLean, who were Bi and a gay man. And off of the back of that, and that fear of queer people being complicit in the Soviet side of the Cold War, there were a huge increase in the crackdown of male vices and perversions as they were talked about at the time. It got to the point where about 1000 men were arrested in the UK every year for committing burglary offenses which the same offenses that Oscar Wilde was arrested for in the 1800s. In the 1950s, this all came to kind of a huge head with the arresting and prosecution of Peter Wildeblood, who was a Daily Mail journalist, and Lord Montagu, who was a Lord. So they were convicted under those same buggery laws. And it was quite the scandal at the time, where it was front page news, this troll really hooked the nation and catapulted gay rights and the laws around homosexual relationships to the forefront of like the public consciousness. To the point where the government of 1954 ended up commissioning, a thing called the Wolfenden report, which was run by Sir John Wolfenden, where they essentially interviewed a load of like psychologists, a load of people in the public sphere, lawmakers, public prosecutors, etcetera. People who were intersecting with the experience of prosecuting gay men and under these laws, one of the things that I do quite enjoy about this particular report, is that they had to use pseudonyms for homosexuals and prostitutes, which were meant to be the focal point of the report of the time. So they called homosexuals, Huntleys, and prostitutes Palmer's, because they were women on the committee, and they didn't want to shock women by using those words again and again, and Huntley & Palmers are biscuit manufacturers. So they were going around using these biscuit euphemisms as a way of being able to not damage the ears of the poor women folk. The Wolfenden report ended up publishing in 1957. And it had its recommendations to decriminalize homosexuality, it then took 10 years for legislation to pass. So 1967 was when buggery was decriminalized. And then obviously, that was the end of the gay rights movement, and we got all of our rights and we never had to fight for anything again. 

ROWAN:  And it was so fantastic.

JAZZA:  Uh. Not. So, in 67, the age of consent for gay male relationships was 21, which was when you were considered an adult by the state at the time, and that wasn't equalized until the year 2000. And obviously, there are regional differences as well. Scotland decriminalized it a lot later than England and Wales, which were the 1980s, and Northern Ireland, as we know, a little bit slow too. But yeah, the parts of especially Patrick's life that we see in flashbacks in this movie, that show the clandestine nature of going into cruising spots, the use of places for cottaging, and the abuse by people in power by members of the police against homosexual men. Is I think one of the better parts of this movie, in like its documentation of those, of those experiences.

ROWAN:  Stunning bit of history there from Jazza.

JAZZA:  You're welcome. I know you didn't say thank you, but you're welcome anyway. Shall we go into talking about—

ROWAN:  The movie itself?

JAZZA:  Harry and Co.

ROWAN:  Harry and Co. Let's—

[theme]

ROWAN:  So as loyal listeners of the show will know, we split the movie into three acts and we name each of the acts. Jazza, what is the name of the First Act?

JAZZA:  The name of the First Act is thank God for Everett because otherwise, they'd be some pretty flat performances throughout this whole movie. I just want to give a moment to Rupert Everett as like, kind of like look, we're following that we talked about in Bros and in other movies. Who is kind of like a flip side where Rupert Everett has, as Rowan said actively talks about how difficult it has been for him to continue to get roles after he came out in the 2000s? But in this movie, he has a relatively small part as the older Patrick but is really fantastic. Even though he doesn't have many speaking lines. His physical acting is a fan—is amazing. One particular highlight for me is when he tries to steal some cigarettes from the older Marion and they just all cascade onto his lap. I adore Rupert Everett in this movie, and I will watch anything that he is in. But we are introduced by Rupert Everett's character, the older Patrick being brought from we assume the hospital to Marion's house where he is going to continue to receive care. Marion actively talks about how she doesn't want him to go into a home, but their relationship isn't clear to us at the moment. We aren't sure how they know one another. But she seems pretty hell-bent on caring for him.

ROWAN:  She's done all the research, she's Google—Google things. And then her—we assume her husband arrives home. And it's clear that he is not so okay with this plan. Essentially, this movie is across two timelines. So we have the older versions of Patrick, Tom, and Marion. And then we flashback to their younger versions, we move between different time periods within their life as well. And we kind of go backwards to learn more about a scene that we've previously seen. And so a lot of this movie is about the reveal of what these hints, at relate different kinds of complexities or arguments or past in their relationship, actually meaning. So the fact that we don't know exactly what's going on with the three of them at first, is kind of indicative of how we explore their relationship, the entire movie.

JAZZA:  Something we do know is that Tom wants nothing to do with Patrick. Even though he has this other man in his house who needs— it seems around-the-clock care, he hasn't gone into his room. He hasn't said hello, and he hadn't seen him. And we see Patrick asked actively after Tom like asking where he is. So we think that something about that is there. Our first big flashback is when Marion and Tom her husband meet, which is on a—really cold-looking beach. And they end up converting, I mean Harry Styles looks great. That hair is fantastic. 

ROWAN:  It's fantastic the whole way through the movie. Harry Styles is Harris uh— is the MVP. I truly believe. it's fun. It's so swoopy.

JAZZA:  Harry Styles's hair should have been in the beginning credits before Harry Styles, to be completely honest.

ROWAN:  Absolutely stunning. 

JAZZA:  So they end up courting Tom and Marion. Tom teaches Marion how to swim. I'm pretty sure at some point, Marion kicks him in the balls when they— when they lie down, which isn't an adorable little moment.

ROWAN:  She does. We love—we love a bit of physical comedy. And it's very much like two very opposites attract vibes. We learned that Tom apparently normally goes off to like bimbos basically. The fit 1950s version of bimbos, which I think is just like a busty woman is how it's described. Whereas Marion has this very dimia, very sweet, an innocent school teacher. They have this, you know, very reciprocal teaching relationship, where he's teaching her how to swim and being bold about it. And then he wants to know a bit more about art. And so she is taking him to the library on these cute little dates. So this is all—this is all within my older Marion sort of memory. We see her sort of staring out of the window, and we lululu like go into her memory. So this is how she's remembering the beginning of their relationship.

JAZZA:  And this is also where the problem of Harry Styles begins rearing its ugly head. So I— in my notes, I initially say, is this a character choice of Harry being so wooden? That does sound like a valid character choice for a— for somebody who is a bit, laddie, maybe not as in touch with his emotions. 

ROWAN:  It could have been.

JAZZA:  It could have been. But as we go on, it just seems that Harry Styles is not capable of—he's capable of saying the lines and very little else. 

ROWAN:  Yeah. I also felt the same way. Like, as I was watching, you'd watched it slightly before me. And so I— I knew that your feelings about Harry Styles in this movie were not overly positive. You didn't give too much away. But I believe that you sent me three messages in a row that was just oh, no, oh, no, Harry. Oh, no, he's out of his depth. 

JAZZA:  Yes. 

ROWAN:  Which I feel like was kind of how I felt as well. So I've recently been watching House of the Dragon. And that also has a dual timeline. There's like multiple actors playing the same character at different ages. And I really felt the connection between those characters. I really felt that the younger one had grown up and become the older one. And there were techniques that were done on set, apparently to make that happen. So for example, they would have the younger actresses do the older actresses, scenes, and vice versa. They were really thinking about how we're going to make it seem like not just with their hair or their costumes, but with their performances that they were the same. Jazza, did you feel like there was a connection between the younger and the older versions of these characters?

JAZZA:  I—actually, for the first maybe like half an hour, 40 minutes, I thought that Rupert Everett was playing the older Harry Styles because I wasn't really paying attention to the names very much. But I—I think this was one of the biggest problems, was the disconnect between the performances of the older and younger characters of Tom specifically and also to a certain extent, Marion, but less, less so. I just did not believe and did not understand how they were meant to be the same person. There weren't very many of the same mannerisms. There wasn't the same tone in speaking. They could have done stuff like given the same like a regional accent or something along those lines, but it took me quite a while for me to cotton on that. Oh, those are meant to be the two same people.

ROWAN:  Yeah. And for me with— with Harry's acting, not to just rag on Harry, but I do—

JAZZA:  Oh, no, go, go

ROWAN:  I'm not gonna not talk about it because it was kind of very obvious within the movie, that he was kind of out of his depth, right in. But it was—his lines were all delivered, and it was so obvious when he was in a scene with Emma Corrin, for example, they had little changes, little intonations, little mannerisms, they were very much in the character. And we're reacting to the lines that Harry's character was—was saying, it didn't feel the same the other way around, it was like, okay, these lines have been memorized, but they aren't coming organically. And I think the moments at which that was most obvious, or any moment in which his character had to have an emotional outburst, which happens a few times in the movie. So you will see Harry having like a particular word that he decides that he's going to shout, or he's going to slam his hands down or get in someone's face. But he can't continue that energy because it isn't authentic, he's not really feeling it. So he's able to do that initial one burst of a shout, but he can't sustain that emotion across the rest of the line. And it sort of just loops back to how he was speaking before the outburst. And I think that that's like a shame because this kind of plot revolves around pretty much only looking at these three characters and the complexities of their inner lives and their relationship. I won't say it's all Harry, because I also think that the writing isn't necessarily the best, and the directing and it's not particularly inspiring in general. But there really was no subtext with, with Harry's performance. And so I think we didn't really even get a sense of like this in a world that was happening. I really felt like Patrick's character was potentially the only one that I felt like there was something else going on. Especially the actor who played young Patrick was one of my favorites, I think uh. 

JAZZA:  Yeah, he was really with it.

ROWAN:  Him and, him and Rupert Everett, David Dawson and Rupert Everett, I think who both played Patrick at different ages were mu—like obliges more interesting to me than, than the others.

JAZZA:  100%. In the story, we are getting—continue to have flashbacks from Marion's perspective of how these three characters met. So from her perspective, Tom ends up inviting a friend that he's met through performing an arrest for him to take Marion to go and see an art gallery and have a private tour, with Patrick with this other character. And they ended up basically going on throuple dates together. And I really want there to be— I want to see the story and live in the universe, where the three of them end up having kind of like this polyamorous relationship.

ROWAN:  And everything's fine.  They just are vibing. It's a classic period piece moment of like, let's just do so many montages and like, essentially the same scene over and over again, of the three of them going on various arty dates together. And it's at this point in the movie where I mean you've kind of spoiled because everyone knows it's Harry Styles's gay movie, you know, that the, you know, the gay is going to come. But at that point, it's kind of this idea of, she asks this to me, a school teacher is much more obviously suited to Patrick, who is this, you know, art curator, who is, you know, sensitive and has the same interest and doesn't fall asleep at the opera like Tom does. But you know, she loves Tom and she insists that she does, but you're not— at this point, I guess if you didn't know the gate west, you might be like, always Tom gonna get really jealous. Is he gonna—is that going to cause arguments, all of this kind of stuff? But this is all as we said, from her point of view. So all of this kind of culminates in Tom deciding to propose to Marion. This, this relationship gets to that point, which is quite funny, because she sort of seems like, I guess like, yeah.

JAZZA:  Will you think that he goes—will you think about it? And about it and says yes, so.

ROWAN:  That's yes. 

JAZZA:  And this is where we cut back and we start to see Marion. She's washing Patrick a them because he's pretty immobile. He's not got a lot of speech, and he needs that kind of care. And we see her starting to go through his personal artifacts and read his diaries. And we start to understand the perspective from Tom and Patrick. So it turns out in their flashback, they knew each other before Tom met Marion. And—

ROWAN:  Plot twist, everyone. 

JAZZA:  I know 

ROWAN:  It was all a lie.

JAZZA:  So they end up swapping details because Tom helps Patrick with a disturbance on the street somewhere. They go and knock on a doctor who go running down the street. And then Patrick is like, oooh a sexy policeman. Yes, please, very much. Thank you. And he gives him his card. 

ROWAN:  That's a direct quote from his diary

JAZZA:  Exactly. In that voice too. And Patrick invites Tom around to maybe pose for a portrait.

ROWAN:  if you know what I mean.

JAZZA:  If you know what I mean.

ROWAN:  Paint me like one of your French girls, Patrick.

JAZZA:  Not a single French girl on his— on his wall. It's all men. So he ended up doing this the sketch of Tom. And in order to loosen the mood, they start drinking scotch and three scotches in. The classic comes out where Tom says, do you think the sketch is going to be good? Basically, saying, do you think I'm fit? And then Tom touches Patrick's neck, and then they have a quick blowwy on the couch. And that's nice, isn't it?

ROWAN:  That's wonderful for, you know, those who partake. And this is, you know, all big plot twists that we obviously already knew from the entire marketing of the movie and everything, but it's like, okay, sweet. And it's—one of the things I do find slightly confusing in this movie is how much Marion knew or didn't know beforehand about this, because she clearly like she doesn't want to read his diary at first. So we know that it has stuff in it that she knows she doesn't want to read. But then she starts reading. But we find out later that she does know about their relationship. So I guess it's implied that she knows that they had a relationship but she doesn't know any of the details and that Tom's like never talked talk to her about it. And so reading the diary the first time that she's finding out exactly like when it started, and how it went, and how she fits into it, I guess?

JAZZA:  This is also where we end up seeing some of the contexts of gay life in the 1950s and, and shows why this is a would be a really difficult life for Tom to choose. And he actively says, this is not like that I want to do living in the shadows. We see Patrick going out to the Argyle which is still a pub in a hotel that you can go to, which used to be a cruising spot in the 1950s. And we also learned from Patrick that his ex-lover was beaten to death by policemen. Despite all of this, they end up getting married, everyone gets married, not just Tom and Marion.

ROWAN: the poly-throuple get married in the 1950s. It's beautiful. Now Tom and— Tom and Marion get married and this leads us into.

JAZZA:  the wedding party and its aftermath baby.

[theme]

ROWAN:  For long-time listeners of the show will know and new-time listeners, you're just learning. Every gay movie seems to have an act that you could call the party in its aftermath. So yes, this is the wedding party in its aftermath, in which there is a character who was played by Freya something I have forgotten her name, but she played Mini in the third generation of Skins. And I literally have not seen her in anything since. And I suddenly had a flash and remembered her, because she just has this one very small moment where she looks over to Tom and Patrick, like on the wedding day, and clearly knows that they're gay. And she— she's just like, oh, I see that. Like, ooh, as Marion's like, I'm the happiest I've ever been. And this character who's Marion's friend is like, oh, you got a big storm ahead of you. Who like—she comes back later for like one scene, but I was like, I really enjoyed this random character that they threw in, to like really signpost to the audience, like, remember, they're gay and this is the wedding. What the fuck my dudes? Like what's happening here?

JAZZA:  They end up going on Tom and Marion. End up going on a honeymoon to a beautiful little cottage that I would love to rent for the weekend.

ROWAN:  It's stunning.

JAZZA:  It's really gorgeous. Very Instagrammable. I'm sick on the Airbnb. It's almost definitely an Airbnb. Where they have straight sex for the first time. And oh boy, does it not look as fun as when Harry and Patrick were having sex.

ROWAN:  Yep. And then he says the possibly the worst sentence you can think of after having sex with someone for the first time which is, sorry, I'll be better next time, which is like, oh, wow, at you've got a whole life of this, look forward to Marion. And then it turns out Tom's invited Patrick to the honeymoon.

JAZZA:  Of course, let's invite our gay lover. Let's invite our gay lover to buy a straight honeymoon. 100%. Patrick comes along, makes some beef bourguignon, and then vials up Tom to the point of him losing his dragon, slamming the table, which is I'm acting, oh, I'm acting.

ROWAN:  And specifically manages to rile him up around the idea of whether or not they're going to have kids. And when they do have kids, with that Marion will give up her job, or like, kind of keep being able to work. And Patrick is like, yeah, you should be able to keep working like you've got this career. But Tom's very like no, housewife belongs in the house, like looking after the children. And you know, I said this to you earlier Jazza. But there's a world in which this, the writing of this, and the performance of this is such that this could be a really interesting exploration of how the internalized homophobia that someone might have, can ultimately not just destroy themselves, but the people around them in a way that it forces you to perform this like a toxic form of masculinity, and to really dig into these gender roles to compensate. But that's not what happened here. So moving on. 

JAZZA:  Yeah. So we ended up still during the honeymoon. Marion wakes up and oh, the, the dishes are still here from the beef bourguignon. Where are the—where are the two gentlemen?

ROWAN:  But where are the men? 

JAZZA:  The men? Well, the men are in the outhouse, essentially cradling one another.

ROWAN:  And she's like, I might have missed every single sign before now, but this feels pretty definitive. Umm oh no.

JAZZA:  My husband's a gay.  Yeah, whoopsie daisy.

ROWAN:  My husband is a homosexual.

JAZZA:  Whoopsie daisy. But she manages to bury that deep, deep down and then just fuck him again. Just to— just to try.

ROWAN:  deep down.

JAZZA:  And Harry Styles's character did promise to be better next time. It didn't. Didn't get.

ROWAN:  It didn't it.  Maybe next. Maybe next, next time.

JAZZA:  Next next time eventually. It's a long project Marion keep at it. So we're back in day-to-day lives. Now Marion is taking some of the school kids to the museum where Patrick works. And Patrick announces to her oh, by the way, Tom's coming on holiday with me to Venice. Gay getaway.

ROWAN:  So the funniest thing about this is Patrick and Tom have talked about this. And Patrick insists that he'd be the one to tell her, it's like, oh, don't worry, I'll do it. Literally, the worst where he possibly could have done it because he makes it sound like oh, didn't Tom tell you, bitch? Didn't your husband tell you? It looks like I have a closer relationship with him than you do. This is also around the time when Marion has a discussion with that wed— one wedding guests I mentioned. Play by that girl from Skins, where essentially, this girl's like, okay, so what are you going to do about your husband? Do you think your husband might be being tempted by this guy? I hate to tell you, I think he's been tempted to, like, kind of hate to break it to you, but you can't like, un-gay this man. Like is this is not gonna— you're not gonna be able to like, tempt him away from the walls of Patrick. Like if he's already into Patrick. He's in like, you can't stop that gay back in the box. 

JAZZA:  Yeah.

ROWAN:  And— and it's like, wow, how do you know all this about homosexuality? And she's like, isn't it obvious? I'm your lesbian fairy godmother? And yes, there's this very awkward idea of like, oh, so like, two seconds ago, you were my friend. And now you feel about me completely differently. And that's just like a random scene. And then it's like, okay, back to these three, the only three people in the movie.

[theme]

JAZZA:  Hello, dear listener, it's Jazza here, just reading some ads for you. As I'm sure you're aware, we are part of the wonderful Multitude who creates loads of really fantastic podcasts for your ear canals. And we'd like to give a shout-out to one of our siblings for Multitude every single week and this time, it's the turn of Join the Party. Join the Party is an actual play podcast, with tangible worlds, genre-pushing storytelling, and collaborators who just make each other laugh each week. DM Eric and the emphatic players, Amanda, Brandon, and Julia, welcome everyone to the table from longtime tabletop RPG players to folks who've never touched a role-playing game in their lives. If you're not sure where to start, hop into the Camp-Paign, Monster of the Week story, set in a weird and wild summer camp. Or you can marathon the D&D game with campaign two for a modern-day comic book superpowered story, and campaign one for a high fantasy epic. Whatever adventure you choose, you are invited to hang out with that crew each month for that after-party, a session held to discuss campaigns, joke around and answer any listener questions. So my dear friends, what are you waiting for? Are you a D&D nerd like me and Rowan? I can recommend Join the Party wholeheartedly, pull up a chair, and Join the Party. Just search for Join the Party in your podcast app, or go to jointhepartypod all one word .com. We are also continuing to be supported by Squarespace who can help you buy a domain and create a website. We in the past have talked about how we love using Squarespace for our website creation, giving us access to analytics, and the creation of email campaigns, because now that Twitter is dying, I feel like email newsletters are the only way to go forward. And also it's a handy place for us to connect all of our social media in one place. We know you hear a lot of your favorite media, offering their own discount codes, but it would really mean a lot if you chose to support us. By using our one here at the Queer Movie Podcast. All you need to do is go to squarespace.com/queermovie and when you're all set up to make all of your digital dreams come true. You can use the offer code Queer Movie to save 10 percentage points off of your first purchase of a website or domain. Just go to squarespace.com/queermovie. Now back to the show.

[theme]

JAZZA:  I'll be honest it is —it's Venice where I kind of started losing interest in this movie. 

ROWAN:  Which is wild because Venice is I believe in Act Three, in which has Harry Styles's it right?

JAZZA:  It—it does and you know what I did? This is what I'm calling the Third Act, is Glory to have his bomb, because they play Gloria over the montage of Venice and Harry looking out of Venetian window with his bare ass exposed. And—

ROWAN:  I think it does say something that you'd lost the plot at the point in which, this was happening like this may be as a real, real death toll for this movie in your eyes.

JAZZA:  There's a—there's a joke that about his ass being a but he— like it is a beautiful shot. But I just wasn't that interested in the rest of the movie to pick But this is where all the drama is. Because it turns out, and we find out later, well, no, I won't spo—I won't spoil this, but um—

ROWAN:  You're gonna spoil it for the next five minutes. Okay, go on.  how the movie explains it to us in order,

JAZZA:  They get home from Venice. And Patrick is visited by not his policeman, but by some other policeman, because somebody has sent an anonymous letter to his work saying, by the way, your employee is a ho—homosexual and could be dangerous for children. He gets arrested, and he has to go on trial. Marion is like oh my God, don't worry about it. Tom admits everything to Marion. And he's like, I don't think he—I don't know if he says he loves him. But like, oh, my God, it's really bad.

ROWAN:  He kind of like, it's like, you're not really sure whether he's like, oh, no, my darling Patrick, whether he's like they could find out about me. 

JAZZA:  Well, I wonder.

ROWAN:  That was amazing cool one thing.

JAZZA:  I wonder. And so Marion agrees to be a witness, a character witness for Patrick. And this is not an exaggeration. This is exactly what used to happen when people were convicted of buggery in the 1950s. So enjoy that fact, dear listener. But she is up on the stand and says, oh, yeah, he was like really good with the kids at the museum, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And on cross-examination, they read the diary entry that Patrick wrote about Tom, where he calls Tom, his dear policeman, and then he goes, and ma'am, what is your husband's profession? And she goes, a policeman, and then dun, dun, dun.

ROWAN:  Say it. Say it clear. Say it louder Marion, we couldn't hear you. And she's like, a policeman oooh dun, dun dun. With that cross examination, he has been sentenced to go to prison.Tom can't visit him. But Marion does. And it's, it's also at this point in which I was like, I wanted there to be a more clear sort of relationship between Tom and Patrick, in terms of like, whether or not Tom actually loved Patrick or not?

JAZZA:  Well, they told us it a lot. They told us yeah.

ROWAN:  Yeah. But I want it like that thing I just talked about, about the idea of like, Tom was more concerned with his own, saving his own skin, for example. I think it's much more impactful for him. The reason why, which I feel like was implied in the modern day, is that the reason why he can't go into the room with Patrick is because of his own guilt, and his own like feelings. And I didn't get that at all, in the, in the younger relationship. Like, I feel like it would have been much more impactful for him to have been like wracked with the guilt of like what I've done?

JAZZA:  I actually felt like he didn't, he couldn't go in. And I see this because of the interaction that we see older Tom has when he sees the gay couple in the shop. Where I think he's just— he would have been so scared to have like, lived that life and accepted that life. And he talks about it when he first hooks up with Patrick as well, like, this is not the life that I want to lead. And why he ends up choosing to marry Marion, because he says that it's a career choice, like in the, in the force, they say that bachelors just don't do as well. 

ROWAN:  Bachelors can't, yeah. I think to me, it's a combination, right? It's like, I couldn't imagine my life like this. But in not being able to give up Patrick and continuing this relationship with him, rather than just being straight as I should be with Marion. I liked doomed him. And so I'm not able to go into the room like for those two reasons, right? Because I feel guilty for what happened in the past. And like being the cause of that double, like not ever being brave enough to feel like I could be with him. And like maybe that time has run out for me. And like all of those things like that—the. But I feel like we're projecting some of this onto the movie if you see what I mean like there were elements that were definitely there. But I feel like a lot of this is me thinking, what would the character feel in that scenario? And what will it be enough for him to not just not talk to this guy for all this time? But what does nothing to do with him when he clearly is like, just had a stroke and needs someone in his life? Like, what is that about?

JAZZA:  And I'm also still talking of that. And just to target that third. I still am unclear why Marion has brought Patrick to their home in order to care for him. Like we get the thing of she thinks that care homes are really, really bad. But I don't—I still don't really understand what her thing was.

ROWAN:  I think that— I think that's her guilt. 

JAZZA:  She wrecks it.

ROWAN:  Because here we go 

JAZZA:  Oh, yeah, here we go.

ROWAN:  The big plot twist that we haven't mentioned yet, that we kept secret for about five minutes is, Marion was the one and we only find that out and Tom only finds out in the oldest storyline. She has kept this a secret for decades. Marion was the one that called in the tip. Marion was the one that sent that letter to his employer. So she is the reason why he was put in prison. And although she clearly like realized her mistake and tried to stick up for him, we know it didn't work. He still went to jail. And so it's— I think that the reason why she brought him in is because she is also guilty. And we also see life in prison, he gets like beaten up, and he gets treated appallingly. And like, we don't know whether any of that has potential brain damage for the amount of kicking that boy's skull was getting, has contributed to his ill health. But even if it hasn't just the idea of like, I see this man, he used to be so full of life and joy and art reduced to this. And knowing that she has something to do with it. I do think that guilt is like part of that element.

JAZZA:  Hmm. Yeah. That makes—

ROWAN:  Does that make sense?

JAZZA:  That does make sense to me.

ROWAN:  But that's something that I just decided, and that isn't necessarily explicitly said in the movie. And things don't explicitly need to be said in movies. But I feel like I wanted something more from him. Because essentially, the end of the movie arrives, Marion makes this confession. We've seen in flashbacks, what she thought had happened in her life. She's read the diary and figured out what happened, like filled in those blanks, as far as I remember it. And I say remember, I literally watched it yesterday. So as far as I recall, they don't explain what happened in all of these decades between other than I guess Marion and Tom continued to be married. And then they just never saw Patrick again, because he was only in jail for two years. Right? 

JAZZA:  We have no idea and what I don't know—so her decision is to leave Tom, to be a full-time carer of this man that we assume he hasn't seen in four decades.

ROWAN:  And who maybe doesn't necessarily want to see him?

JAZZA:  Yeah. And from her perspective, all she knows is that Patrick loves Tom. She's never had that conversation with Tom. She's never had that conversation to know whether or not Tom actually loved Patrick. And so I found this ending absolutely bananas. And I did not understand in any way shape or form because the movie very much frames it as Marion is now free. 

ROWAN:  Yes.

JAZZA:  She's in the taxi driving along the coast.

ROWAN:  That's the end of the movie. 

JAZZA:  And then she cries it's like, I'm free of this horrible situation that I have created. 

ROWAN:  Yeah.

JAZZA:  And then we're meant to feel happy for Tom now being in this situation with this man that he doesn't know. But it's okay, because Harry Styles comes back and touches, Rupert Everett's neck. I hated the end of this movie. I absolutely bloody despised it. I didn't know what I was meant to take away from it, but I didn't— I don't think we should be taken away from it. The— oh, thank God. Like I think that Marion has that catharsis. That is not what I wanted out of this movie. And I didn't feel like there were these great Sarcos lovers finally reunited with, with Tom and Patrick. It was a bit of— it was a mess of an ending. It was an absolute mess of an ending. 

ROWAN:  Yeah.

JAZZA:  No me gusta.

ROWAN:  Yeah. I agree that there was like a real nonreaction from Tom to her being like, yeah, so I was the one who like destroyed our lives. 

JAZZA:  Yeah.

ROWAN:  Three of us like a while ago, like it felt like the catharsis that I wanted, was him being like, like, fuck this basically like abs— like this is how the fuck could you that felt like more of a cathartic ending to me than, like you said, what actually happens, which is that she tells him, this and that is like, and I've realized, what's my life even been since then, like, oh, I just stayed married to you, you're gay. Like, okay, it was fine. And like, I like you and whatever. But like, who am I—I need to find myself. Bye, peace out, I'm leaving. Enjoy your like Rupert Everett, who is going to need around-the-clock care, byee.

JAZZA:  Who literally can't wash himself or walk like—

ROWAN:  Who can't even get himself a smoke? And God does he want to smoke the whole way through this movie, just give him out cigarettes. And so yeah, the ending is one of those things where you look at it for like two seconds, like the imagery of it of like, oh, they're finally reunited, touching again, whatever. And you're like for half a second. You're like, how sweet, and then you think of any of the implications and you're like, oh, this is horrific. Like this is not—this is really bizarre in terms of what actually happens. And then the way that it's framed as some kind of like, we kind of just like leave them like the gays have like one second together. And then it's like more importantly, Marion is in a taxi.

JAZZA:  She's going to stay with her sister. Who knows what happens next, right? The end.

ROWAN:  This mo—so the end of the movie.

[theme]

ROWAN:  So at this point is when we give our ratings. So this is what we thought of the movie and we rate them out of these six stripes of the rainbow flag. We give it a—a number of stripes and we choose the colors based on the symbolic meaning of the colors in the six-track rainbow flags. So red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for harmony, or purple for spirit. Jazza how many stripes are you giving My Policeman?

JAZZA:  I really liked both David Dawson and Rupert Everett's portrayals of Patrick. I also really liked the small windows that we saw into life in the 1950s that were kind of like, presentative.

ROWAN:  For a second, I thought you were gonna say the small windows and that cottage, it was beautiful architecture.

JAZZA:  I also loved that cottage.

ROWAN:  Oh It was beautiful.

JAZZA:  And not gonna lie. The Harry Styles is bum great. High-quality stuff. I don't think this deserves any more than two.

ROWAN:  I'd have to agree. What two were you giving it?

JAZZA:  And I'm gonna give it nature because that cottage is beautiful and also the East Sussex Coast is very pretty lots of white cliffs. 

ROWAN:  Yep. 

JAZZA:  And I'm gonna give it spirit for that historical context that it gave me.

ROWAN:  That is stunning. I'm gonna give it green for nature and blue for harmony, not because use I believe in like the harmony of any of the characters or the ending, but just because there was some opera singing and they do that in harmony.

JAZZA:  In beautiful harmonies.

ROWAN:  Um. Yeah. I would agree it's a two-stripe, two-stripe movie for me as well. And I think that a big— this is not a hot take by us. I think the reviews are like, not very complimentary. And again a lot— it's not all just ragging on Harry Styles. 

JAZZA:  Oh, Wikipedia says mixed reviews, which does just mean bad, doesn't it?

ROWAN:  Yeah, it does. There's like— it's like a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes or something like that. Like it's not— it's not doing especially well. And I— this isn't all just people ragging on Harry Styles. Like a lot of people are critiquing the director who was like a theater director and like not necessarily being able to carry that over into film. I think the writing is just not deep enough for a story that has so little plot in a way, like a lot of stuff happens, but you really felt like there could have been a deeper amount of writing to make it more— the characters more distinct and unique and feel more rounded. Rather than just being sort of like stand-ins for the storytellers all this time of like, the guy who is closeted and marries a woman, but is having an affair with a man which we have seen in these stories before. But I wanted to know about them, specifically, and I didn't really feel like this man likes art and this man doesn't understand art and falls asleep in the Opera, was like a good basis for a whole personality.

JAZZA:  Although I have met them while out on the town road. Those people do exist and they deserve stories too.

ROWAN:  Fair enough.

[theme]

JAZZA:  Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy these episodes, then we ask that you consider supporting us on Patreon. As a patron, you can join our queer movie club where we do watch-along in our Discord each month. But that is the bare minimum that you can get my friends. At higher levels, you can also get our movie recommendations and a monthly newsletter with a curation of all of the gay shit that we find on the internet for that month.

ROWAN:  So thank you once again to Jennifer and Toby for supporting us at the highest tier on Patreon. We can't believe that this is happening and we have your support like this. So thank you so much once again.

JAZZA:  Thank you. Make sure that you follow and subscribe to the podcast so that you are notified when our next episode comes out. We have been Jazza John and Rowan Ellis. We are edited by Julia Schifini and are part of Multitude. Thank you once again. Bye.

ROWAN:  Bye.