in case you ever foolishly forget,

— Harry after winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year with Harry’s House

the people who have read the book would know how much two dimensional tom's character is and how we only get to know him through marion and patrick, both unreliable narrators because of their skewed perspective of love. neither of them are in love with tom, they're in love with the idea of tom. they're in love with this ideal, this fantasy and because of that, there's no layers to tom's character. however, the movie does a brilliant job of giving us those layers, in tiny increments, but significant nevertheless. it's in the way they show us tom heading towards patrick's house for the first time, the little nervous excitedness; in the way there's a clear contrast in the sex scenes; in the way the anxiety and fear and overwhelm that's shown when patrick and tom get intimate for the first time; in the way a drunk tom returns to patrick right after he had a brush with policemen and almost got caught; in the way he burns the uniform after patrick is arrested — the very thing he was proud of and wanted to keep ended up taking away this all encompassing feeling that he cherished even more; the way older tom sees a gay couple in public and completely crumples because he's reminiscing of the love that he lost and the helplessness of it (and to think that the it's only a matter of couple decades and how if it weren't for the choices they all made and the circumstances thrown their way, he and patrick could have been like the gay couple at the store, just older, but still ever in love); in the way he finally returns to patrick, puts his fear and guilt aside, and caresses him the same way as the first time and just feels it all. and all of this amounted to tom being a key character, a real person, rather than a culmination of other people's projection, completely changing the narrative of the story and both harry and linus roache did a brilliant, brilliant job of encapsulating this and in a way bringing tom to life.

I think the worst part is when you realize that they were happy, finally free and together, in a kinda established relationship, and suddenly it was all taken from them. One minute they were kissing in the streets, being domestic in some hotel room in Venice and the next, they saw into each other’s eyes for the last time at the police station. And Patrick waited and longed for that touch for over 40 years. He was frozen in time for 40 years. So when he got that touch again, life and love were timeless. Patrick was touched by young Tom because that’s where their story stopped. There was no life after that.

MY POLICEMAN (2022) dir. Michael Grandage

HARRY STYLES AND DAVID DAWSON

MY POLICEMAN (2022) Michael Grandage

MY POLICEMAN (2022) dir. Michael Grandage

DAVID DAWSON & HARRY STYLES My Policeman (2022) dir. Michael Grandage

You two play a gay couple in the show-

Life is Beautiful (La vita è bella) (1997) Dir. Roberto Benigni

is anyone ready to talk about sofiane's turtleneck.......yeah me either