The most beautiful gems are hidden. That’s the case with the new film, My Policeman. You might not have heard of it due to the lack of advertising, especially from Harry Styles’s team, which is unusual as they promoted his last movie, Don’t Worry Darling, heavily. The movie is shown in only select theaters or on Amazon Prime on November 4th. 

 The movie is based on a 2012 book by Bethan Roberts. The story is about wasted time. The characters Marion, (Emma Corrin), Tom, (Harry Styles), and Patrick ( David Dawson) show the lives of a teacher, policeman, and artist. 

The story is set in 1950’s England, with the main characters Marion, Tom, and Patrick, shifting between present and past as the film progresses. Marion meets Tom through her friend, and she instantly is fond of him. Tom meets Patrick after he becomes a policeman and Patrick asks for help. 

The book and movie are very similar, the only difference being the pacing. With high expectations after reading the book and anticipation of whether the movie would live up to my hopes, I felt the entire portrayal of the story was personal, raw, and intimate. 

The movie also helped me understand a lingering question I had when reading the book, and that was why Tom would not see Patrick when they were older until the end. I felt as though that wasn’t unpacked much in the book, but maybe that was just me. The movie includes a scene that was not in the book that emphasized why Tom felt so hesitant to see his past lover Patrick. 

The scenery of the movie was something I enjoyed tremendously because it portrayed very familiar scenes of what I imagined in my head. The movie shifted from the present with the characters Marion, Tom, and Patrick older and towards the ends of their lives and goes back to when the story takes place.

 The actors in this film were outstanding. In a big shift from his most recent film, Styles’ portrayal of Tom was amazing. He was so real and personal. It felt as though Styles was Tom, like he was in his shoes. Corrin’s portrayal of Marion was exactly as I had imagined her when reading the book as wasDawson’s portrayal of Patrick, which was so intimate, it brought me to tears watching his struggles and hardships of being queer in the 50’s.

I sat through the credits with tears in my eyes and my heart aching. The ending scene was what did it for me. I had known what was going to happen, but seeing it in real time after anticipating it for so long pulled at my heart thoroughly. 

As I walked out of the theater and drove home, I wanted to retrace my steps and rewatch that movie all over again, one hundred times over.