My Policeman

First, how excellent to have a film about queerness with four of the major stars being queer (maybe three, I'm unclear on the Harry Syles situation), and a gay director, Michael Grandage. For whatever reason, I honestly did not think I would be moved by this movie. My impression from the trailers was that it would be surface-level queer with no real exploration, sex, or romance. I am pleased to report that I was incorrect. This is more than one love story, it's at least three. It bounces between 1957 and 1999, joy and sadness, romance and hatred, passion and relative apathy, white lies and much bigger lies.

The titular "My" here is not one person. The first love story is between the policeman in question, Tom (Styles) and his wife-to-be, Marion (Emma Corrin, goddess Diana of The Crown), who is the first My of the story. She's a shy school teacher, all pleated skirts and no makeup. He's a terribly handsome (come on, you know it) young "copper" in Brighton, the small coastal Sussex town where this all takes place. David Dawson, who I knew only from Ripper Street (which also gave us Josh O'Connor of The Crown fame; he’s in some really fabulous heart-rending movies, ask me later) is the second My, and what a devastating and understated My he is. To be clear, this film is in part a tragedy, but it is not full of death. No one in this movie dies for being queer, please know that going in. There is violence, all committed by cops (surprise!) and homophobic pricks (not a great word choice, I know). Dawson is Patrick, the museum tour guide who forms a friendship with the married couple. They go on picnics together, they go to the opera, they study JMW Turner’s paintings, and Tom exchanges furtive glances with his wife and with Patrick. And we’re off. 

Tom moves swiftly from being a cop with the power to arrest men caught in homosexual acts or accused of the same, to being a civilian softly and unthinkingly touching the neck of his friend, to being in love with that friend. Marion is at least partially aware of some sort of relationship between the two men, made all the more difficult because she loves them both, in wildly different ways, but she loves them. This is not a polyamory story, but it isn’t not one, though not in the way we tend to think of those. 

The film begins in 1999 and we see the fate of all three characters, specifically that they are sharing a home, though not quite willingly.  I won't give away anything else, but the actors are Linus Roache (older Tom, also very handsome, from Law and Order), Gina McKee (older Marion, still frumpy, from Croupier), and Rupert Everett (older Patrick, a bit beaten down, from My Best Friend’s Wedding). 

Whether the film gets the older and younger versions of the characters to “match” in their behavior is up for debate. People change, of course, but the expectation that we have for movie characters to retain every bit of their younger selves as they age is silly, that is simply not the way of things. Harry Styles’ performance as Tom is that of a young and confused sweet man, unintentionally hurtful to his lovers. Linus Roache’s Tom is hardened, mainly interested in taking his dog for long walks on the rocky beach and not discussing the past. 

I’m so glad that Dawson is getting his due and I hope that this will be his ticket the way that The Crown was for Corrin. Harry Styles doesn’t need a ticket, he’s had his for years, but it’s always exciting to see a multi-hyphenate prove people wrong, which I believe he has done here.

Blonde

I've gotta give credit to the director, this movie is a masturbatory masterpiece. He has made explicitly clear that there is no room here for anyone other than himself, least of all the audience. Unfortunately for him, the only good thing about this movie is Ana de Armas' turn as Marilyn Monroe, and that's not even very good because there is only one note for her to play over the course of the almost three-hour running time. Ana and Marilyn both deserve far better than this. Yes, this is a "fictionalized chronicle of the inner life of Marilyn Monroe," so take literally every shot of this movie with a grain or bushel of salt, or don't take it at all. 

A movie about the inner life of Marilyn Monroe should, by all accounts, be terribly sad and fraught, but also layered and with some manner of forward movement and growth. None of that is here. This is not really about Marilyn, it's about Marilyn via the men in her life. These men are unnamed in character (The Ex-athlete, The Playwright), for reasons that baffle me, especially since at one point a newspaper headline pops up stating, "Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe to Marry." No matter. Bobby Cannavale (deserving of more) is Joe DiMaggio (the ex-athlete), a one-note predatory brute. Adrien Brody (deserving of more) is a perhaps two-note Arthur MIller, the only man (really the only person other than her makeup artist) in this movie to show Marilyn anything even remotely like love, or kindness of any sort. Evan Williams and Xavier Samuel are the two beautiful young men playing Edward G. Robinson Jr and Charlie Chaplin Jr, whom Marilyn is shown as being with in a years-long throuple. 

Each partnership ends in pregnancy, and each pregnancy ends in miscarriage or forced abortion. Don't forget the talking fetuses begging her not to "kill" them like she did the others. There's a lot more to say about that, but I'll let other people do that so I can retain some amount of sanity. There's an NC-17 rating to this movie for the one and only reason that there are a couple of shots from "inside her vagina" during a previously-mentioned abortion. Let's remember that if it showed someone's head exploding right off of their body, it MIGHT be rated R. But vaginas are SCARY and women's wants and needs are UNIMPORTANT and and and and and. The lighting changes, the switches between b/w and color, and the focus shifting throughout the movie? No idea. Just another way to show off, I suppose. Andrew Dominik, the writer and director (double threat of bad) really wants us to know that he's seen movies before and he knows the tricks, even if those tricks make not one whit of difference or add any depth here. 

Marilyn is written as a completely helpless, weak, stupid, hystrionic siren undeserving of her own humanity or story, only useful as a vessel for rape and shame multiple times over.

Would not recommend.