A few years ago, British author Fiona Shaw wrote an essay for The Conversation that took issue with the ending of the film version of her novel Tell It to the Bees. The book, set in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, tells a tale of two women—a doctor and a factory worker—who have a secret affair; at the end, they leave their bigoted backwater town and move to Italy, where they find happiness together. The movie concludes very differently, with the two women separating at a train station and never seeing each other again. “I am not in love with the ending,” Shaw wrote. “This bittersweetness is a straight person’s finale. I wanted my couple to have their cake and eat it together, for once: a fully romantic, fully happy, and therefore—in the context of lesbian fiction—a more radical ending.”
Indeed, fictional same-sex love stories set before Stonewall very often end tragically; it’s as if writers simply can’t believe that happy relationships between two women, or two men, ever existed in olden times. It’s a depressing but surprisingly durable trope—and one that finds its latest expression in My Policeman, a new movie adaptation of the 2021 novel by Bethan Roberts. It premiered on Prime Video on Nov. 4.
The story alternates between two time periods. In the late ’50s in Brighton, England, schoolteacher Marion Burgess slowly comes to realize that her police-officer husband, Tom, is having a secret sexual relationship with their friend, Patrick Hazlewood, a museum curator. In the late ’90s, a retired Marion takes care of Patrick, who’s severely disabled by a stroke, and reminisces about the past. She’s still married to Tom, who dislikes having his ex-lover around and avoids all contact with him. The story is narrated by Marion, and occasionally by Patrick, through their journal entries.
None of these characters are particularly sympathetic. Tom clearly doesn’t love Marion; he only marries her because it’s expected of a man in his position. He carries on his affair behind her back and shows no regard for her feelings and no remorse for his deception. Marion, meanwhile, is infatuated with Tom for no clear reason—other than that he’s stunningly attractive, as the book points out repeatedly. Her stiff-upper-lip, nonconfrontational manner quickly wears thin, and any pity the reader may have for her is completely wiped out by a late, distasteful plot twist. Patrick, who’s also obsessed with Tom, is pitifully willing to “share” him with Marion, when he could, quite frankly, do a lot better; Tom is not only an uncommunicative, unintelligent, provincial, and cowardly bore—he’s also a cop: a member of a group that, in the ’50s and beyond, regularly harassed, abused, arrested, and imprisoned gay men.
Indeed, no matter how many times Patrick uses the possessive that gives the novel its title, Tom is emphatically not his policeman; he belongs to a homophobic law-enforcement apparatus and does nothing to change it. At one point in the film, Patrick narrates, “These are wretched times we live in. When one has to scurry underground like a criminal…just to drown one’s sorrows.” What he, and the novel, don’t face is that Tom is part of the reason why the times were so very wretched.
The film—competently helmed by theater director Michael Grandage and written by Philadelphia’s Ron Nyswaner—stars The Crown’s Emma Corrin as Marion, and singer, songwriter, and occasional actor Harry Styles as Tom; David Dawson, who had a small role in the recent spy film All the Old Knives, plays Patrick. Corrin and Dawson do creditable jobs, although they’re hemmed in by the shallowness of the material. Styles’ performance oscillates between pleasant likability and strained anxiety—neither of which suit the rather cold figure he plays. He does embody Tom’s physical attractiveness, but simply looking the part isn’t enough. The elder versions of the trio are played quite well by Gina McKee, Linus Roache, and Rupert Everett, respectively—but, sadly, they get relatively little to do.
Readers, and viewers, will likely tire of the three primary characters, who all have little respect for themselves or for others. The only saving grace is a minor player: Julia Harcourt, one of Marion’s fellow teachers, who’s outgoing, confident, and active in local nuclear-disarmament protests. She’s also queer, and quick to condemn Marion for characterizing being gay as “wrong.” Julia is the most vibrant character in both the book and film, but she’s only in a handful of scenes. “I found that her apparent independence, the way she was not afraid to look or sound different, was something I wanted for myself,” narrates Marion, and audiences may feel the same way. She’s wonderfully played by Industry’s Freya Mavor in the film, which also implies that she has a good relationship with a steady girlfriend.
Toward the end of the book, Marion says, “I’ve had enough of my own words. What I’d really like now is to hear another story.” If only it was Julia’s story—a tale of an independent, activist lesbian in the ’50s, living her very best life.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
