My Policeman: Quietly arresting

My Policeman (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual candor and nudity

Available via: Movie theaters and (starting November 4) Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

Celebrated British theatrical director Michael Grandage’s roots show in this adaptation of Bethan Roberts’ 2012 novel, which frequently feels more like an intimate stage production than a film.

 

And two become three: Museum curator Patrick (David Dawson, left) is delighted to
discover that visiting couple Marion (Emma Corrin) and Tom (Harry Styles) have a
genuine interest in art.

The melancholy, regret-laden character study centers on three people who — out of desire, desperation and love — have caused each other a great deal of pain.

The kicker, in Ron Nyswaner’s script, is the jolt upon realizing that what seemed like happenstance actually was premeditation.

 

The story opens in the 1990s, in the East Sussex seaside resort of Brighton. Tom (Linus Roache) and his wife Marion (Gina McKee) argue over her decision to allow Patrick (Rupert Everett), an ailing, long-estranged friend, to live with them while he recuperates from a stroke.

 

We’ve no clue what prompts the hostility, which Tom refuses to discuss, preferring to retreat to long walks along the massive sea walls that protect the cliffs above (an impressively dramatic image given imposing ferocity by the way cinematographer Ben Davis frames the crashing waves).

 

Grandage and Nyswaner then slide back to the 1950s. Newly minted schoolteacher Marion (Emma Corrin), enjoying a day at the beach with friends, is taken with Tom (Harry Styles), a handsome young policeman. Sympathetic to her fear of the water, he offers to teach her to swim in the local lido (public outdoor pool), if she’ll broaden his horizons by recommending some good books and classic artists.

 

She’s charmed by this. A copper, wanting to better himself?

 

The days pass idly and happily. They visit a gallery, where Tom is drawn to a painting of storm-tossed seas. Patrick (David Dawson), the curator, offers some learned observations; then, sensing kindred spirits, he impulsively offers them tickets to a classical music concert. Tom falls asleep. (So would I.)

 

They become inseparable, a larkish three musketeers enjoying life to the fullest whenever possible. Patrick’s cultured sensibilities are more perfectly aligned with Marion’s, and his solicitous attention to her begins to feel like something more than friendship, which Tom can’t help noticing (prompting Constant Companion to mutter, “Threesomes never work out”).

 

But is Patrick actually interested in Marion? Or is she merely an excuse for his close proximity to Tom?

Phantom Thread: A clumsily stitched melodrama

Phantom Thread (2017) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang

I simply cannot fathom the waves of critical adulation lapping onto the shores of this dramatic snooze of a film.

Having decided that Alma (Vicky Krieps) is to become his new lover and muse, celebrated
fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) naturally insists on creating a
dress for her.

Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson may have framed every scene with the care and precision that Reynolds Woodcock employs while making his haute couture dresses and gowns, but the story and characters remain unpalatable, the pacing lethargic, and the result about as appealing as waiting for paint to dry.

In short — although the viewing experience seems to last forever — Phantom Thread is a crushing bore.

Anderson’s films are always challenging at best; they range from weirdly captivating (Inherent Vice, Boogie Nights), to distastefully bizarre (There Will Be Blood, Magnolia), to utterly unwatchable (The Master). His characters invariably are grotesque burlesques: parodies of actual people, exaggerated to make a peculiar narrative point that rarely has anything to do with the actual human condition.

Based on his artistic output, Anderson feels like a misanthrope.

Phantom Thread is no different. Despite the luxurious world in which these people inhabit, laced with beautiful things, their souls are ugly and cruel. They deserve each other ... which I suspect is Anderson’s ultimate point, but hardly an epiphany on which to hang a 130-minute movie.

The setting is post-WWII London in the 1950s, at the House of Woodcock, where the imperious Reynolds (Daniel Day-Lewis) lives and designs at the center of British fashion: lavishly expensive creations coveted by royalty, movie stars, heiresses, socialites, debutants and their ilk. The firm’s mostly silent staff caters to every caprice and demand of their fussy, fastidious and anal-retentive lord and master; the stiffly condescending Reynolds expects no less.

Business matters and other “unpleasant details” are handled by his starch-collared sister Cyril (Lesley Manville); such details include hustling each of his casual lovers out the door, once he tires of their companionship ... which, we gather, is a frequent occurrence. Each, during her short stay, supplies a smidgen of inspiration drawn from personality and physique; each departs having been transformed, to a degree, into a “better” version of herself.

Reynolds also is an unrepentant sexist pig: a coldly calculating martinet who doesn’t even seem to like his most loyal and devoted clients. The dynamic feels like an uncomfortable gothic mash-up of Pygmalion and Rebecca, with Manville’s Cyril standing in as the chilly, omnipresent Mrs. Danvers.