During the years of 1957 and 1958 in Brighton, East Sussex, a beautiful, yet forbidden love story touched the hearts of many viewers.

Those viewers included myself and alumna Jessie Warren, who I always seem to go to movies with.

My Policeman—a film that is based on a 2012 novel by Bethan Roberts—has piqued my interest since I had first seen the trailers, and it wasn’t just because of the cast. With the film being a love story, and me being a hopeless romantic, I couldn’t help my buildup of excitement for the movie.

Before going to see My Policeman the Thursday after it was released, I had heard that the movie took sad to the next level. This, of course, made me genuinely nervous to watch the movie, since I tend to cry very easily.

As the movie progressed, though I was thoroughly enjoying it, all I could think about was what could happen to make me cry that much. I had gone a majority of the film without a single tear shed, and I was scared that my friends had oversold the emotional impact to me.

And then, like any good movie, there was a plot twist. I had partially expected this twist since it was established early in the film that this love was not going to work out, but it still hurt immensely to watch. The ending, specifically, had me sobbing. It was the perfect ending to My Policeman that left me with mascara and tear stains all the way down my neck.

My Policeman had an extremely touching story, to say the least. Homosexuality plays a large part in the film, and since being anything other than straight became illegal in World War I and continued to be until 1967 in East Sussex, it made such love far more difficult. The movie shows that there were secret gay bars scattered around town, and they also showed how gay people publicly showing affection to each other in public would get brutally treated by the police.

The movie was set both in the present day and the late 1950s, showing where the three main characters—Patrick Hazelwood, Tom Burgess, and Marion Taylor, who are played by David Dawson, Harry Styles, and Emma Corrin as their younger selves and Rupert Everett, Linus Roache, and Gina McKee as their older selves—met in the past and who they turned out to be.

I truly enjoyed this setup for the movie. While knowing who ended up with who, I watched the film eagerly waiting to see how everything transpired. Throughout the movie, I was able to put different pieces of the puzzle together and make connections between the past and present. It was brilliant.

I was captivated by My Policeman; it never had a dull moment and part of the reason for its success was the acting. The cast did a wonderful job depicting both the internal and external struggles that the characters were going through, and it especially shows if I ended up crying so hard. With Styles being newer to the acting world and this only being his third movie, his acting was, at times, a little bit awkward; however, given the circumstances of the plot, it only adds to the romantic tension.

My Policeman was able to perfectly illustrate a forbidden love triangle. Filled with love and heartbreak, this movie will never cease to have a special place in my heart.