A less-than-arresting ‘My Policeman’

 My Policeman deals with the sadness of lives that have been deformed by laws and values that changed too late for its principal characters to reap the benefits of social advancement. The movie examines the relationship between two men and a woman during the 1950s, a time when homosexuality was against the law in Britain. We meet the same characters in the late 1990s after the law and attitudes have evolved. Based on a novel by Bethan Roberts, the movie uses two sets of actors to play its characters as young people and as senior citizens.  Emma Corrin plays the young woman in this triangle with Harry Styles and David Dawson playing the men. In this case, the older actors (Linus Roach, Gina McKee, and Rupert Everett) don’t look enough like their younger counterparts to keep from being a debilitating distraction. Director Michael Grandage keeps the tone steady as Styles’ Tom (a policeman by trade) and Dawson’s Patrick (a museum curator) negotiate the difficulties of being gay in a country that won’t allow them to be themselves, something that Tom has trouble with on his own. Looking for cover and continuity, Tom marries Corrin’s Marian. Unsurprisingly, the two don’t live happily ever after. In the '90s scenes, Patrick -- disabled by a stroke -- is brought by Marion to share Tom and Marion's Brighton home.  My Policeman asks us to feel the weight of suppression that warps the lives of three people but the story’s tight focus and split narrative produce a dreary, often stale affair.

The last days of Oscar Wilde

Rubert Everett directs and stars in The Happy Prince, a movie that affords him an opportunity to play a towering figure in sad decline.

In The Happy Prince, Rupert Everett portrays playwright and international wit Oscar Wilde during his last sad days. Once a big-ticket celebrity and the toast of London’s theatrical scene, Wilde spent his final years as a fallen idol, having served two years at hard labor for homosexual activity.

The movie begins when Wilde resurfaces from prison, perhaps expecting to reclaim his place as a highly regarded literary figure. Wilde even proposes a reunion with his estranged wife (Emily Watson) and his two young sons, but a repaired marriage was not in the offing.

Instead, Wilde spends time with his friend Robbie Ross (Edwin Thomas), enjoying his restored freedom by drinking and engaging in sex. Even in decline, Wilde retained a sense of nobility, as well as an appreciation for the theatrically expressed gesture. He towers in his decay.

The point of all this becomes obvious, although it’s never stated. Everett tells us that Wilde’s rejection by society was needless, a pointless expression of hypocritical British morality that had been enshrined in law. Penniless in Paris, the exiled Wilde gradually begins to see that he has no future.

At one point, Wilde captures a bit of past glory by singing in a Parisian nightclub that hosts a somewhat shabby crowd. He again occupies center stage. It might be fair to say that, in his own life, he never gives up center stage, even if only to swoon into defeat.

Although Everett offers flashes of Wilde’s renowned wit, he mostly shows what it was like for Wilde to sink into the muck of a life fueled by unsupportable quantities of alcohol; we see the catastrophic waste of a man who no longer could employ his talents.

At one point, Wilde reunites with former lover Bowie Douglas (Colin Morgan), a reprise of the relationship that brought about Wilde’s imprisonment. It should surprise no one that this reunion doesn’t turn out well.

Both behind and in front of the camera, Everett acquits himself well, paying powerful tribute to a man ravaged by a society that should have been applauding him.

A portrait of man who took portraits

Socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of President Teddy Roosevelt, is credited with having uttered the now famous line, "If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me." Longworth probably would have loved sitting next to photographer Cecil Beaton, the subject of Love, Cecil, a documentary by director Lisa Immordino Vreeland. Beaton, who died in 1980 at the age of 76, led a life that brought him into contact with the successful, the famous and the beautiful; he loved and loathed the people in his life with equal passion. Openly gay and in possession of a stunning gift for portraiture, Beaton eventually went to work for Conde Nast. He was a star at Vogue until an anti-Semitic reference appeared in one of his drawings (yes, he drew, as well). He eventually righted the foundering ship of his career, which included activities as various as becoming a war photographer during World War II and later serving as art director for movies such Gigi and My Fair Lady. Rupert Everett delivers a narration in the form of some of Beaton's writings, taking us inside the mind of a man whose name may not be well-known to many, thus allowing the movie to make an inadvertent comment on the fleeting nature of fame: Beaton, by the way, won four Tonys and three Oscars. Those who enjoy caustic wit will relish Beaton's trashing of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, as well as his withering remarks about Katharine Hepburn. But he loved Greta Garbo and may have had a sexual relationship with her. Juicy gossip aside (and there's plenty in Love, Cecil), Vreeland's documentary introduces us to the work of a man who wrote, took pictures, designed and drew -- and did all of these with skill and a well-honed aesthetic.

'Hysteria': The vibe isn't good

Hysteria tries to take a breezy approach to a 19th Century story about the dawn of a new consciousness in female sexuality. Put more succinctly, Hysteria is a comedy about the invention of the vibrator. Director Tanya Wexler pokes fun at the Victorian propensity to put a mask of acceptability on physical pleasure. To make the point, the movie includes a variety of brief scenes in which a strait-laced physician brings various women to climax by providing manual stimulation. As it turns out, such physicians, who perform their work with detached precision, experience an unfortunate occupational hazard. Call it hand fatigue. For them, the vibrator is a godsend. Hugh Dancy plays Mortimer Granville, a doctor who lands a job working for Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce), a physician who specializes in the aforementioned hand therapy. Dalrymple introduces electricity into the proceedings after he discerns another use for an electric feather duster his roommate (Rupert Everett) has invented. No story can run on vibrators alone, so Pryce's character has been given two daughters (Felciity Jones and Maggie Gyllenhaal). As it turns out, Gyllenhaal's cheerfully independent character operates a settlement house for impoverished women. The screenplay introduces a bit of romantic rivalry involving Dancy and the two daughters, but it doesn't amount to much. I read somewhere -- can't remember where or I'd happily credit the source -- that Hysteria is supposed to play like Masterpiece Theater with vibrators. It's a nice description -- and I wish it actually were true. Such a movie might have been funner, cheekier and more satirically relevant.