There’s no question that teenage girls are Wild about Harry Styles. They lined the streets around the Princess of Wales Theater in Toronto yesterday to catch a glimpse of the pop star. When I mentioned to a 20 year old volunteer that it was like Beatlemania, he looked at me blankly. What the heck is that?

Inside the POW the audience was enthusiastic but not quite so over the top. Harry got a big ovation during the introductions and then things settled down. At the end of the time, the audience showed its appreciation, but there were no panties thrown on the stage.

Now come the reviews and so far, on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has scored a 50 from 8 reviews. That’s not a lot of reviews, but it does point to the response in general. I wrote last night that “My Policeman” looks like a Merchant Ivory production of a Harold Pinter play. Three people are caught in a triangle. One of them does something terrible to another, in the process ruining their lives. It’s all very polite, except for the sex between the two men, which may seem surprisingly graphic to the teen age girls. And for straight men, “My Policeman” will not be a destination movie.

Amazon Studios has nevertheless produced a smart looking, reverential film of high quality. For a certain audience beyond Styles fans I’m sure there will be debate and discourse. The acting, of course, is vivid. I really enjoyed Linus Roache and Gina McKee as the older versions of Styles and Emma Corrin (who is a star in this film a la Carey Mulligan). McKee has to sell her character’s simultaneous concern and duplicity, and pulls it off with aplomb. Roache brings a grief to the adult version of the Styles character that you don’t expect.

But what I didn’t understand about all these characters is how they proceeded to live after the events of the film. The story takes place in 1957-58. The two men have an affair. There’s a trial because being homosexual in Britain is a crime. The married couple, Tom and Marion. do not divorce. David Dawson’s Patrick, a museum art curator — goes to jail for two years. And then, they just… went on? I couldn’t figure out how Tom and Marion got through the sexual revolution of the 60s and the freewheeling 70s not having sex, or children, or any connection to each other. Also, how Tom didn’t know what Marion did in 1958. It never occurred to him?

One last PS: Dawson’s Patrick is five foot eight inches, He reminded me of Charlie Chaplin. Yet, 40 years later, played by Rupert Everett, he’s six foot four and substantially larger physically even sitting in a wheelchair. Those intervening years must have been hectic.

Sometimes you don’t know what to expect from a film and then you’re pleasantly surprised.

Such is the case with Netflix’s “The Good Nurse,” starring two of the top actors of the younger generation: Oscar winners Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne.

“The Good Nurse” is based on the true story of nurse Amy Loughren who helped police unmask a serial killer nurse in her hospital named Charlie Cullen. It’s thought that Cullen killed hundreds of patients in the nine hospitals he worked in, just because he could.

Tobias Lindholm has constructed a taut thriller that works not despite but because you know right away Cullen is crazy.

Chastain and Redmayne have serious chemistry and are working each of them at the top of their game. Each of these actors is settling in for the long haul, and it’s thrilling. There’s also great supporting work from Noah Emmerich, Nnamdi Asomugha, and Kim Dickens. (Poor Noah– for years he was duped by the Russians on “The Americans.” He finally figures out a case early this time!)

“The Good Nurse” gets a theatrical release for Oscar eligibility at the end of October. I’d love to see it in the Hamptons Film Festival.

Total hit tonight fir Michael Grandage’s “My Policeman,” the second Harry Styles movie of the season styles fans mobbed the street in front of the princess of Wales theater as if Harry were the Beatles or Frank Sinatra.

Styles acquits himself well in this taut drama of a married gay cop in Britain in 1957 who is also gay. It’s as if Merchant Ivory made a Harold Pinter movie. I’ll have a longer review later but for now Amazon Studios has a success.

And yes, the crowd inside loved the movie as much as the fans outside.

I’m nervous to say a film got a long standing ovation or is headed to the Oscars after so much bloviating has gone on the last two weeks.

But Steven Spielberg for the first time ever brought a film to a festival and knocked everyone out.
“The Fabelmans” played in Toronto tonight to a rapturous audience. The film not only got a long standing ovation but actor Judd Hirsch actually got huge applause during the screening when his character appeared in a sustained cameo.

“The Fabelmans” is Spielberg’s most personal work ever but he assured the sold out audience at Princess of Wales theater that he’s not retiring. He just felt it was time to address some autobiographical facts because of the pandemic. He wanted to talk about his parents, each of whom died in the last few years at very old ages.

The movie covers the director’s childhood in the late 50s and early 60s up through the time he goes to college in 1964. Tony Kushner has — no surprise — written a wonderful, richly realized screenplay that will reap its own awards later this year. But it wouldnt work so well without this tremendous cast. Michelle Williams is the mother, Paul Dano is the father, Seth Rogen is the couple’s best friend, and there’s terrific work from Jeannie Berlin and Robin Bartlett. Newcomer Gabrielle LaBelle plays Sammy Fabelman, the stand in for young Steven.

There’s also a surprise appearance by David Lynch as director John Ford.

I was lucky enough to have lunch with Spielberg’s mother maybe a decade ago at kosher restaurant in Los Angeles. She was 95 years young and a spitfire. Spielberg’s choice of Michelle Williams to play her is brilliant. This may be Williams’s best work and that’s saying something after movies like “My Week with Marilyn” and “Blue Valentine.” Spielberg said during the Q&A that after seeing “Blue Valentine” he’d asked to meet Williams and kept her in mind for a future role. Thank goodness he did.

What a joy “The Fabelmans” is. Audiences are going to love it. This is a really beautifully constructed family saga with lots of humor and pathos. It’s the kind of movie we go see in theaters to have the communal feeling of the shared human experience.

Mazel tov!