Written by Michael Schulman
Translator: Yi Ersan
Proofreading: Iris
Source: The Hollywood Reporter (October 22, 2022)
It's a good time for movie star Harry Styles.
Last month, amid gossip as suspicious as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the feminist psychological thriller "Dear Don't Worry" was released, in which Styles plays a sumorous husband and, off-screen, the pop star who has drawn the film's director Olivia Wilde in love (the latest chapter in the endless soap opera is that Wilde made a very special salad dressing for her boyfriend, probably from Nora Epron's novel Heartburn) Recipes).
"Dear Don't Worry"
This week, Styles brought his second film work, the same-sex period drama My Policeman, directed by British theatre veteran Michael Grandagee – with whom Styles doesn't seem to have any behind-the-scenes entanglements.
"My Policeman"
For a 28-year-old pop icon, Styles is one of the world's most popular heartthrobs, and this foray into the film industry is naturally a big deal - the rookie actor, hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as "the first global cover star ever", has attended Venice and Toronto film festivals one after another, and everywhere he goes, he has a fanatical eye.
From a media perspective, Styles' foray into the film industry is a big deal for Hollywood, which is always looking for leading actors with box office appeal, and few people have super popularity before entering Hollywood.
Harry Styles
However, there is also the potential for great disappointment. Can this guy act? Now that the results are out, the answer to this question has been mixed. But this question arises from a question that may be more critical: Is Harry Styles a trustworthy movie star? It's a job that requires more pure attraction than the ability to convert — and that attraction should be within the reach of an international pop star.
The trend of pop musicians becoming movie stars can be traced back to the "Big Bang" of sound films.
For example, The Jazz Singer (1927), Al Joson more or less reproduced his stage performances – including the infamous white-faced role as a black man. The voices in the film are still experimental, but Josheng's stardom — including his mantra: "You haven't heard anything yet!" - Give sound the emotional impact needed to revolutionize this art form. Since then, most music stars have become movie stars by recreating or refracting legendary personal characters on the screen.
"The Jazz Singer" (1927)
Elvis Presley showed his flexible hips and seductive vocals in Prison Rock and Pink World. Diana Ross played legendary predecessor Billie Haledet in "Hard to Make Up for Love". David Bowie amplifies his otherworldliness in The Alien and Labyrinth.
"Extraterrestrial"
Lady Gaga, who played a superstar in "A Star is Born" and a pretend celebrity in "The Gucci Family," still talks a lot about her methodological skills in disappearing into her characters, even though her pop image is revealed in the crimson lipstick of every scene.
The Gucci Family
Other music stars have a more diverse selection. Frank Sinatra only showed his side in "Red Men and Green Women" and "Eleven Arhats", but he could apply his "Rat Pack" (an informal group of American film actors led by Humphrey Bogart, widely used by the news media and the public in the mid-1960s) machismo in war movies ("Gone with the Wind") and political thrillers ("The Manchurian Candidate").
"Red Man Green Woman"
Madonna uses movie roles to reinforce her unpredictable image — a punk bad girl (Mystery Date), a femme fatale (Supreme Detective), a global celebrity (Mrs. Peron) — but also adds a few sparkles with Pink League.
"Red Pink Alliance"
Cher has had one of the most surprising music-to-screen careers, playing an unattractive lesbian partner in "The Silkwood Affair", and then provoking the beam in "The Mask" and "Moonlight", for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress; She was able to unload her gorgeous image for the role and then put back on Bob McGee's tailor-made dress for her when she attended the Oscars, which did not affect her maverick star charm.
The Silkwood Incident
To its credit, so far, Styles has tilted more towards Cher's route when choosing roles. In 2017, he made his screen debut in Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan, as an ordinary soldier he was placed in a large group, fighting for survival with little room for charisma.
"Dunkirk"
Despite his cameo appearance as some sort of intergalactic prince in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Eternals, he seems obsessed with playing just the average person – even those with perfect hairstyles and puppy-like eyes.
Neither "Dear Don't Worry" nor "My Policeman" is a rock star genre, and you can feel his desire to challenge and prove himself. In Dear Don't Worry, Styles replaced Shea LaBeouf at the last minute — a situation that received little media attention — as a seemingly doted husband living in a suburban 1950s. Without spoiling the major plot twists, we can only say that his character Jack is completely different from the description just now.
"Dear Don't Worry"
Styles looks dashing in a vintage suit and driving a vintage car for most of the scene—part of the nostalgic illusion that drives the plot, and in one inexplicable scene, he taps like a puppet. The role would have been more plausible if Styles had any hint of menacing or rough temperament (LaBeouf was clearly overly threatening), and those qualities fell on Chris Pine, whose character represented some sort of male-right cult leader.
Pine and Florence Pew, who plays Jack's wife, dominate the film, while Styles has to rewind gradually. The state in which he seems most comfortable is when he expresses his sexual desires; Jack's penchant for cunniling the scunnilingus, although hardly aligned with his chauvinistic background, is interpreted convincingly.
Sexual desire is also at the heart of My Cop, in which Styles plays Tom, a cop living in Brighton in the 1950s, who has a beautiful love affair with a naïve teacher named Marion (Emma Colin). After they get married, Marion inadvertently breaks Tom's big secret: he has a fiery and illegal affair with their friend Patrick (David Dawson), a museum director.
"My Policeman"
As their good lives are shattered, we see the elderly trio reunited in a monotonous beachfront villa. This gives Styles' scene a sense of reminiscence. Wearing his uniform—and eventually taking it off—he had a languid, understated sensuality that suited him well as his image as a working-class crush.
Styles is not very good at dealing with pain; His climactic scene with Colin is okay, but you can feel that he is working his important dialogue. This is easily reminiscent of Paul Mescal, who has a similar charm, and in his rather warm new film "After-Sun Holiday", he only uses a look and unspoken thoughts to convey the pain and pessimism of a man in emotional restraint.
Styles is not capable of giving layers to his characters in such detail. As in Dear Don't Worry, he's most convincing when his desires are finally released – he kisses Patrick like a man who craves to breathe.
"Dear Don't Worry"
Of course, the fact that Styles filmed same-sex bed scenes is also related to his popular image. From the time of the "one-way group", his fans imagined a gay double life for him - his relationship with the group's member Louis Tomlinson inspired a lot of fan fiction.
Styles' androgynous costume and refusal to publicly define his sexuality did little to quell these speculations and was instead criticized as selling corruption, so you can also think of My Police as an interesting bait.
In My Cop, on the other hand, his real-life sexual ambiguity becomes a useful expression of simplicity: we can imagine that Tom, trapped in a period of repressed gender norms, might thrive in a more relaxed era, eventually presenting as Styles in sequin-encrusted jumpsuits.
"My Policeman"
Both of Styles' recent roles are an examination of a retro masculinity that—surprisingly—isn't as captivating as advertised. In this sense, Styles is the perfect fit for this image, as he embodies the retro coolness of the classic poster boy and the ambiguity of the sexy symbol of the twenty-first century.
The problem is that despite his natural charisma, he doesn't occupy the screen in the way that a leading actor needs. Instead of showing the air of Sinatra, the self-torture of Marlon Brando, the wit of Jacket Nicholson or the ease of Leonardo DiCaprio, he has been suppressing himself, while more confident actors, such as Colin and Pew, steal the show.
Maybe he doesn't know what he's trying to say with his performance — he said at a press conference at the Venice Film Festival that "Don't Worry, Darling" "feels like a movie," meaning it's hard to find answers out of his mouth — but his choice is interesting enough that we shouldn't have to make up our minds for him yet. I don't think Stelles will become a movie star, but I'm curious what would happen if he could control that undeniable star charm and unleash it on camera.