

She has an inkling that he is lying however, and when he returns she confronts him about his relationship with Patrick. Tom later takes a trip to Venice with Patrick and he tells Marion that it is strictly for business. He also wanted to have a family and as he had some feelings for Marion, he decided that married life was the best way forwards for him, even though it meant keeping his sexuality hidden.ĭoes Marion find out the truth about Tom’s sexuality?Īfter Tom and Marion move into their marital home, she suspects something is going on between her husband and Patrick when she spots them in one another’s arms in the nearby barn.

This is one reason why Tom was afraid to express his sexuality but his engagement to Marion was another.Īs he had been told by a superior officer that being a bachelor was a barrier to climbing the ranks as a policeman, he felt he had to get married to climb the career ladder. Homosexual acts were against the law in the 1950s and anybody found engaging in them was in danger of being thrown into prison. Why is Tom afraid to express his sexuality? However, this reluctance eventually gives way to passion and it’s not long before the two men start to become intimate with one another. At first, Tom is reluctant to go to bed with Patrick and this is because he doesn’t feel free to express his sexuality. But when the two men are together, it quickly becomes apparent that they have sexual feelings for one another. Patrick is an aspiring artist and he invites Tom into his home so he can draw his portrait. When Patrick witnesses an accident, he calls on Tom for help and the two men strike up a friendship soon after. He refuses to spend any time with his former lover but when Marion does something that takes both Tom and the audience by surprise, he is given the incentive to reconnect with Patrick.ĭo Tom and Patrick get a second chance at love? Or is it too late for them to resume their relationship? Let’s take a closer look at the film: Tom is unhappy about this, presumably because he doesn’t want a reminder of the love affair he had decades before. When Patrick has a stroke, Marion brings him into her home so she can act as his carer. We learn that Tom and Marion remained together after getting married and that the relationship between Tom and Patrick ended. The film regularly flashes forward in time to the 1990’s and this gives us the opportunity to reconnect with each character.

As a consequence, they meet in secret, but as Tom is engaged to be married to a schoolteacher called Marion, the two men don’t have the opportunity to spend a great deal of time together. Unfortunately, Tom and Patrick are bound by the legalities of the time which forbid them from having an openly gay relationship. Based on Bethan Robert’s novel of the same name, My Policeman tells the story of closeted gay policeman Tom who falls in love with museum curator Patrick in 1950s Brighton.
