Speaking about the complexities of sexuality, pop superstar Harry Styles said he found the withdrawn gay man he plays in 1950s drama My Policeman depressing as his latest film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday celebrated.

My Policeman is one of several LGBTQ films in what organizers have hailed as a “breakthrough” year at North America’s largest film festival, along with Billy Eichner’s romantic comedy The Bros and critically acclaimed gay military drama The Inspection “. “

But the world premiere of Style’s latest film comes as the British actor and singer faces accusations from some high-profile critics of ‘appropriated’ queer culture, including his gender-biased fashion choices while keeping his own sexuality ambiguous.

In the film, he plays Tom, a police officer who fell into a forbidden love triangle with a young woman and a curator at an urban art gallery in Britain in the 1950s, when homosexuality was illegal.

“I think they have so much nuance and so much complexity that comes up for people in real life in terms of sexuality and self-discovery,” Styles said at a Toronto news conference.

The film, which also stars Emma Corrin and Rupert Everett, jumps between 1957 and 1999 and sees the trio at two different stages in their lives, when Britain’s attitudes and laws towards homosexuality had radically changed.

It’s about the consequences for all three of Tom being forced to hide his love for curator Patrick.

“I think Tom’s version of acceptance is pretty depressing — I think he accepts that he’s going to deny that part of himself for a really long time,” Styles said.

He remarked, “For me, the reason the story is so devastating is that it’s ultimately a waste of time for me.

“I think wasted time is the most devastating thing because it’s the only thing we can’t control. It’s the only thing we can’t get back.”

Styles has been praised by some for normalizing gender fluctuation and speaking out for LGBTQ rights, and he fueled speculation about his sexuality by telling a concert audience, “We’re all a little bit gay, aren’t we?”

However, his position has been criticized by prominent LGBTQ figures such as actor and singer Billy Porter, who has accused Styles of “just doing it ’cause that’s the thing”.

The issue of actors who don’t openly identify as LGTBQ playing gay roles was addressed and even ridiculed at the Toronto Festival with the world premiere of Bros — billed as the first gay rom-com from a major Hollywood studio.

“The entire cast is openly LGBTQ actors, even in the straight roles in the film, which is rare,” Star Eichner told AFP on the red carpet.

The film itself contains several jokes about allegedly Oscar-hungry straight actors taking on gay roles in films like ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and last year’s ‘The Power of the Dog’, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

“I mean, it’s absurd and kind of annoying that it’s taken so long that we didn’t have more of these films; there should be tons of these movies by now,” Eichner said of Bros.

“Nevertheless, I’m very grateful that Universal has finally decided it’s time.”

Director Nicholas Stoller added that he hopes the film, about a New York City gay podcaster who is afraid of commitment and is reluctantly looking for love, will resonate “not just with an LGBTQ audience, but with a straight audience.”

Ahead of the festival, the event’s CEO, Cameron Bailey, told AFP there has been a “breakthrough this year” for films full of “LGBTQ stories told in places they may never have been before , and in a much more mainstream way.

“The biggest companies that make films have often been the most cautious, shall we say, of that kind of representation,” he said.

“That seems to be changing.”

Among them was “The Inspection,” from writer-director Elegance Bratton, who drew on his own experiences as a black gay man who joined the US Marines to escape homelessness and was forced to endure at times brutal homophobia.

Jeremy Pope, who plays Bratton’s alter ego Ellis and is openly gay, told Deadline his performance came “from a place of truth and honesty.”

“In the end, it was something very beautiful and — for me and for him — very healing to be able to see my writer-director, who was black and queer, across the room and be like, ‘I see you. ‘”

TIFF runs until September 18th.