#I'm genuinely unsure what peoplea re objecting to

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Okay, I finished the book. The one thing that stuck out was that this is not Tom's story. He is a passive character. I think I like it that way.

Marion was a flawed woman for whom I feel sympathy for. She is very obviously queer to me. I understand her struggle, the need of compulsory heterosexuality pushed on to us so much that we cannot imagine there being anything beyond it. I loved her with julia. I wish they meet again. The fact that she's thinking about moving to Norwood where julia is feels very intentional. Her way of looking at women through the whole book is consistent and very familiar. So is her need to feel loved by a man.

I think I already sent you my thoughts on patrick but I'd just say that I related more to patrick than to Merion. I have always felt that queer pain is different for different people and yet very similar. And I felt both his pain and joy.

Tom....well, I don't know what I feel about Tom. That's probably because we don't really get to know his thoughts. We look at him through either Marion's view or Patrick's. I think there's more to him than that.

Also nowhere in the book police force is portrayed in a positive light. Which is something I've seen people wonder about and state as a reason to say that this story shouldn't be told.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on individual characters. And what scenes do you want see in the film the most ?

I’ve so loved reading your thoughts anon thanks so much for sharing them.

I totally agree about there being a lot of space around Tom - I really wonder what it’ll mean for Harry to make all these choices as an actor that remove ambiguity.

I also loved that the book ended with Marion heading to find Julia.  When you asked about Marion’s queerness after just starting reading - I was thinking about it ending with her leaving to go to the only queer woman she knows. To me that suggested that the subtext of queerness for that character was intentional. 

I loved seeing the world from Patrick’s eyes, and everything that told you about how he had to navigate the world.  I do think it’s a shame that there’s this big hole in the book, we don’t get his voice after his diary ends.  I don’t mind that we don’t know how he navigated the next fifty years as a queer man in Britain, but I wish the narrative didn’t minimise the possibility that he’d lived several lives in that time.

I also agree with you about the police.  I’ve found the police discourse around this movie straight up bizzarre.  I’ve got nothing against stories depicting the police force, my objection is to stories that lie about the police.  

I think My Policeman depicts Brighton police pretty accurately. They’re shown to be violent, homophobic, widely disliked in the communities the characters come from (middle-class gay men, and working-class families), institutionally corrupt, and against art and culture and the things the characters value.  In addition, Tom doesn’t do anything particularly socially useful, let alone heroic in the course of the book.

Narrators occasionally think positive things about Tom, but that’s hardly surprising, given the plot. When Patrick thinks about corruption in the force hurting the ordinary police officer, I think that shows you how far gone he is for Tom, given everything else we’ve heard about his attitude towards police.

I’m genuinely surprised that anyone would take My Policeman as a positive portrayal of the police.  And it does make me wonder what they value. 

In terms of what I’m most looking forward to - the latest set pics have really upped my excitement about everything.  As I’ve said before I really want to see Harry say ‘I meet people, sometimes I have sex with them, don’t ask me again.’

I’m really looking forward to every scene between Patrick and Tom.  I really hope they keep in the scene between Marion and Sylvie with the nail polish.  And then the scenes between Marion and Julia.  I was about to say that I was also looking forward to the scenes where Patrick enters gay worlds, but I realised at this stage my answer to the question about which scenes I’m most excited by is just ‘the gayest’.