GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE
****
Director: Sophie Hyde
Screenplay: Katy Brand
Principal cast:
Emma Thompson
Daryl McCormack
Isabella Laughland
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 97 mins.
Australian release date: 18 August 2022.
Australian director Sophie Hyde’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is about a month-long commercial liaison between a repressed older woman and a much younger, free-spirited male sex worker. The terrific script comes from the pen of English comedian and actress Katy Brand and it wittily and sensitively covers territory dealing with the hang-ups faced by a mature woman who hasn’t experienced a satisfactory sex life in her marriage and what happens when she sets out to discover what she’s missed out on. Early on in the piece, she admits that she’s only ever had one partner and never had an orgasm, and is convinced that she probably can’t and never will, to which the guy declares, “It’s an orgasm, not a Fabergé egg!” It’s a response that sets us up for the entertaining dialogue to come, because there’s much more conversation than there is sex in this clever movie.
Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) is a retired religious education teacher who’s been widowed for two years and she’s yearning for adventure and some sexual gratification. Her husband was strictly a ‘missionary position’ man, never deviating from his ‘hop on, hop off’ idea of sex, so she organises a liaison with a sex worker, Leo Grande (Irish actor Daryl McCormack from Peaky Blinders), having chosen his photo from an online site. Upon meeting him in an anonymous hotel room, Nancy is overcome by his good looks and ripped physique and tries to back out but Leo turns out to be patient and charming. He placates her nervousness about the difference in their ages by telling her that his oldest client was a woman in her 80s. “Are you some kind of a sex saint?” she asks him, astounded. In fact, so considerate is he, and so willing to lend her a sympathetic ear, that this initial meeting is not their last and Nancy hires him for more sessions - she’s got quite a bucket-list of sexual acts she wants to work through before their arrangement concludes. As they become more familiar with one another, the couple connect, sharing their innermost secrets and Nancy starts to unwind as the walls that kept her repressed for so long begin to collapse.
Thompson is at the top of her game in this role. She conveys both uncertainty and confidence, depending on the way her and Leo’s conversations transpire, slipping back and forth between the ‘old’ Nancy and the emerging one. McCormack plays his part magnificently as well. He is a man not without his own dilemmas and his cool demeanour also begins to slip as the story develops. Brand’s screenplay accurately reflects the insecurities human beings face about body image and self-assurance and the courage required to face up to one’s true self but it never becomes mawkish or patronising. This is the first time Thompson has been totally nude on-screen and she appears to have found it personally redemptive; in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter the actress states that women have always been subjected to uncertainties about their bodies and a way around it is to stand in front of a mirror and “to accept” and “not judge” yourself. In the competent hands of Sophie Hyde, who’s previously brought us two excellent films, 52 Tuesdays and Animals, what could be very confronting becomes delightful and light-hearted. She says, “In this film what is sexy is intimacy; the thrill, touch, sensations, the way someone can take your breath away and the reality of two human bodies removed from the signs and symbols of what we are supposed to think is sexy, publicly.”
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a liberating work, one that has parallels with the recent Australian film How to Please a Woman, which also told a positive tale about sex and female empowerment. It seems like this is a theme we’ll be seeing a lot more of in the future.
Screenplay: Katy Brand
Principal cast:
Emma Thompson
Daryl McCormack
Isabella Laughland
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 97 mins.
Australian release date: 18 August 2022.
Australian director Sophie Hyde’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is about a month-long commercial liaison between a repressed older woman and a much younger, free-spirited male sex worker. The terrific script comes from the pen of English comedian and actress Katy Brand and it wittily and sensitively covers territory dealing with the hang-ups faced by a mature woman who hasn’t experienced a satisfactory sex life in her marriage and what happens when she sets out to discover what she’s missed out on. Early on in the piece, she admits that she’s only ever had one partner and never had an orgasm, and is convinced that she probably can’t and never will, to which the guy declares, “It’s an orgasm, not a Fabergé egg!” It’s a response that sets us up for the entertaining dialogue to come, because there’s much more conversation than there is sex in this clever movie.
Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) is a retired religious education teacher who’s been widowed for two years and she’s yearning for adventure and some sexual gratification. Her husband was strictly a ‘missionary position’ man, never deviating from his ‘hop on, hop off’ idea of sex, so she organises a liaison with a sex worker, Leo Grande (Irish actor Daryl McCormack from Peaky Blinders), having chosen his photo from an online site. Upon meeting him in an anonymous hotel room, Nancy is overcome by his good looks and ripped physique and tries to back out but Leo turns out to be patient and charming. He placates her nervousness about the difference in their ages by telling her that his oldest client was a woman in her 80s. “Are you some kind of a sex saint?” she asks him, astounded. In fact, so considerate is he, and so willing to lend her a sympathetic ear, that this initial meeting is not their last and Nancy hires him for more sessions - she’s got quite a bucket-list of sexual acts she wants to work through before their arrangement concludes. As they become more familiar with one another, the couple connect, sharing their innermost secrets and Nancy starts to unwind as the walls that kept her repressed for so long begin to collapse.
Thompson is at the top of her game in this role. She conveys both uncertainty and confidence, depending on the way her and Leo’s conversations transpire, slipping back and forth between the ‘old’ Nancy and the emerging one. McCormack plays his part magnificently as well. He is a man not without his own dilemmas and his cool demeanour also begins to slip as the story develops. Brand’s screenplay accurately reflects the insecurities human beings face about body image and self-assurance and the courage required to face up to one’s true self but it never becomes mawkish or patronising. This is the first time Thompson has been totally nude on-screen and she appears to have found it personally redemptive; in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter the actress states that women have always been subjected to uncertainties about their bodies and a way around it is to stand in front of a mirror and “to accept” and “not judge” yourself. In the competent hands of Sophie Hyde, who’s previously brought us two excellent films, 52 Tuesdays and Animals, what could be very confronting becomes delightful and light-hearted. She says, “In this film what is sexy is intimacy; the thrill, touch, sensations, the way someone can take your breath away and the reality of two human bodies removed from the signs and symbols of what we are supposed to think is sexy, publicly.”
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a liberating work, one that has parallels with the recent Australian film How to Please a Woman, which also told a positive tale about sex and female empowerment. It seems like this is a theme we’ll be seeing a lot more of in the future.
