Somewhere, in a seaside town, an ageing couple invites an older – ailing – friend to convalesce in their home. The invitation is not quite benign. The wife is enthusiastic. The husband is noncommittal. The patient, recovering from a stroke, is irascible and closed-off. Who are these people? Why do they matter to each other? And why should they matter to us? These are questions that Michael Grandage’s “My Policeman” should, realistically, provide answers to. We will get the answer to the first question soon enough, as the film moves into extensive flashbacks to the past. There will be an attempt at answering the second, interrupted by the film’s own airlessness. We are presented with very little in way of an answer to the final question throughout any of the 113 minutes of film, though. In a tale of love and betrayal spanning decades (and sexualities), “My Policeman” feels insipid.
