My Policeman, which had its World Premiere today at the Toronto International Film Festival, has its roots in a novel by Bethan Roberts which was actually based on a complicated love relationship between famed novelist E.M.
Forster (A Room With A View, Howard’s End, Maurice), his male lover of 40 years, a policeman named Bob Buckingham, and Buckingham’s wife May Hockey who slowly came to realize her husband had a long standing affair with Forster, but even after he had suffered a series of strokes took care of the author in his later life so deep was their friendship.
Roberts changed the names and fictionalized it all for her book which is now the basis of Ron Nyswaner’s (Philadelphia) screenplay which explores the love triangle of three freewheeling friends in 1957 who each was hobbled by the mores of the time, repressing rather than expressing their own sexuality, even as the sexual desires and confusion hit a boiling point.Bordering on a rather soapy premise, this is a high class production that keeps it upscale, if somewhat sexually graphic, all the way thanks to its Tony and Olivier Award winning director Michael Grandage and a sterling cast that has been split in two with the decades-spanning story employing three younger stars for the 50’s scenes, and three older veterans playing the same characters in the 90’s.
It is a risky technique that doesn’t quite pay off as the older and younger trios of actors don’t quite believably match each other, at least initially for me until I came to accept the casting ploy.Plotwise Harry Styles in his second film of the festival season after last week’s Venice debut of Don’t Worry Darling, plays British policeman Tom who is befriended by lively museum curator Patrick (David
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