Still Tragic After All These Years
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            Shuttling between dual time frames, the story begins in 1999 when an ailing Patrick has come to live with Marion (despite Tom’s protests) but jumps back to the late 1950s when the members of this sexual triangle were luminously young and when words like “pervert” and “invert” were used to describe Patrick’s sexuality. The 1950s in England was a period in which plainclothes policemen were on the prowl for men in makeup and wide-legged trousers to arrest. Homosexuality wouldn’t be decriminalized until 1967. As the title implies, My Policeman is about the law and the crushing effects of postwar bigotry. The book jacket states that Roberts was inspired by the real-life love triangle that involved novelist E. M. Forster, the police officer Bob Buckingham, and his wife May, though any parallel with real life ends there.

            Exactly ten years after the publication of My Policeman, director Michael Grand-age and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) have adapted Roberts’ novel for the screen and cast Emma Corrin as Marion, David Dawson as Patrick, and pop star Harry Styles as the compellingly seductive Tom. Corrin is best known for her star-making performance as the young Princes Diana on “The Crown” and Harry Styles is, well, Harry Styles. The 28-year-old “it” boy who came to prominence in the boy band One Direction is now widely admired for his gender-bending audacity on-stage and off. My Policeman can only send his queer stock soaring.

            Any tale of triangular romance is a competition of perspectives. Roberts’ narrative is told in five parts and pivots between Marion’s and Patrick’s points of view. She sees Patrick as a snob and a sybarite, while he views Marion as an obstacle to a happy life with “his” policeman. “Patrick is a sexual pervert,” she cries to Tom, “it’s obvious to everyone but you.” Things fall apart when a jilted Marion writes a letter to Patrick’s employer and outs him for gross indecency, which leads not only to the loss of his job but also imprisonment and a horrific beating behind bars. Between the flashbacks, we see the older Marion, Tom, and Patrick (Gina McKee, Linus Roache, and the out actor Rupert Everett, respectively) still sifting through the rubble of Marion’s betrayal.

            Spoiler Alert, starring Jim Parsons (as Michael) and Ben Aldridge (as Kit), purports to be a romantic comedy, but it’s far more tragic than My Policeman—surprisingly, because it’s set in post-Stonewall, post-Obergefell America. The title doesn’t do it justice; it’s not only spoiled like last month’s milk but dead on arrival. Michael Showalter, director of the chemo-comedy The Big Sick, pilots the plot from the early days of Michael and Kit’s love affair in New York City to Kit’s death in a hospital bed. Though Parsons gives a hammy performance, he is clearly challenging himself as an actor after twelve seasons on The Big Bang Theory. He was superbly slimy as Rock Hudson’s agent in Hollywood and as the acerbic queen (another Michael) in Boys in the Band (both from Netflix).

            Written by David Marshall Grant and Dan Savage (of the popular sex advice column, “Savage Love”), Spoiler Alert isn’t so much a comedy as a scramble of uneven scenes. Its only originality lies in those meta-moments when the script departs from dramedy conventions. Michael, for example, writes for TV Guide and imagines himself as the child star in his own sitcom. At one point, he rewinds the scene and recasts Kit with an entirely different actor. Michael has long suffered from low self-esteem and, during their first sexual encounter, tells Kit: “I’m an FFK … former fat kid. I have some body issues.” Kit’s use of cannabis and Michael’s drinking both complicate their relationship, but it’s Kit’s cancer diagnosis that tests their love. In the role of Kit’s mother Marilyn, Sally Field is the steely mama bear who guards her son’s hospital bedside like it’s the Hope Diamond. This is familiar territory for Field, as she played essentially the same part in the camp classic Steel Magnolias (1989).