Good Luck to You, Leo Grande: Film Review
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande could have gone very wrong in a different pair of hands but thanks to the likes of Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack, director Sophie Hyde and writer Katy Brand, it is terrific.
The comedy-drama follows Nancy Stokes (Thompson), a retired teacher and widow who has only ever been intimate with her late husband. Their sex was very routine, perfunctory and lacked excitement and passion and she is now ready to explore her sexual side; tick off her bucket list and see what she’s been missing. She hires a sex worker named Leo Grande (McCormack) for a night of passion but once he arrives, she starts to freak out about what she’s doing.
I can assure you that this is not some seedy movie where we just watch an older woman and a younger man do the business for 97 minutes. There is so much more to it than that. It follows Nancy’s journey from being sexually repressed to being sexually empowered and awakened but there is less sex in this than you might think – she has to work up the nerve to follow through with her plan so a lot of the film is about them getting to know each other.
As the film is set almost entirely in one hotel room, its success relies on the actors’ performances and the script – and they deliver. I was hooked. Brand has crafted such fully-realised, well-rounded and well-observed people and I loved getting to know more about them. Over the course of the conversations, Nancy and Leo gradually reveal more about themselves and the way the script slowly peels these layers back is terrific. I thought the screenplay was really smart in how it handled their discussion about sex work and how Leo feels about his profession. It tackles that taboo subject and feels almost subversive for being so upfront and unashamed about it.
I’ve always been a fan of Thompson and I think she is excellent here. Nancy is so uptight and serious and needs to live a little and let go – but she is scared of venturing into the unknown and passing up control of a situation. Her performance is more emotional than I expected and I found her character’s journey quite moving.
In a two-hander, the core partnership has to be spot-on and McCormack is ace as well. He is smooth, charming and gorgeous with a calming, reassuring presence to help put his clients at ease. While Nancy is determined to have sex, she also needs someone to listen to her and Leo becomes a sort of therapist. But he has his own personal stuff going on and she sometimes pushes his buttons.
I just loved watching these characters talk. I soaked it all in and was never bored. There were a couple of conversational turns I wasn’t too sure about it but I thought Nancy and Leo’s journey was wonderful. This is so much better than I expected it to be.
In cinemas Friday 17th June