Introduction - Emma Thompson plays a repressed English widow who hires a young handsome sex worker to fulfil her unfulfilled fantasies.
Name of film: Good Luck to You Leo Grande
Director: Sophie Hyde
Year: 2022
Official Poster
Review
This virtual two-hander directed by Sophie Hyde, who made the 2019 Sundance hit, Animals, is about a series of hotel room meetings between Thompson and Daryl McCormack - Leo Grande.
Thompson is a retired RE teacher who has never had an orgasm, and now has a list of sexual experiences that she’d like to “get through” to understand what she's been missing throughout her long, steady but unfulfilling marriage.
Thompson's sexual experience comes largely from essays from her young students, “Should it be legalised?”
Over their meetings, the two discover more about each other – neither are using their real names – Thompson wants to know why Leo has chosen this field of work, while castigating herself for being as sick as Rolf Harris, for even entertaining an idea of illicit sexual meetings.
McCormack has his own issues which slowly reveal themselves.
This is an open and sometimes funny performance from Thompson, veering between clumsiness and charm - someone who genuinely wants to experience more, before the erotic spark deserts her.
“I want to play at being young again,” she says.
In early scenes, she seems to be rather unsympathetic, torn by attraction, but lacking empathy, as if she is talking only to herself, but this changes over the course of this undeniably sweet natured film.
Leo is accommodating kind, intelligent, soft spoken, fit and not altogether believable – Thompson eventually describes him as “some sort of sex saint… a master of the menopause.”
Despite their acting skills, neither character actually comes off as completely believable.
This movie, for all its charm, is not really a thorough exploration of anxiety and repression vs openness.
Thompson asks: “Are you real?” the answer of course is that Leo isn't – he has been hired to adopt convincing role play, which he does with style.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, wants to explore this still taboo subject, yet it seems it has really been designed to be enjoyably whimsical - the music score by Stephen Rennicks, keeps the mood in an easy listening, pastoral category.
To this reviewer it works best as a comedy/drama of manners and to watch the ever effortless acting ability of Thompson.
It premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, which at the last minute was changed to an online rather than in-person event because of an increase in cases of the Omicron variant during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
Following the premiere, Searchlight Pictures acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film for Hulu. On 11 March 2022, it was revealed the film would be released on Hulu on 17 June 2022.The film was also theatrically released by Lionsgate UK in the United Kingdom on the same date.
Trailer
Number of SUBs out of 10 - 5 out of 10
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Thanks for reading my review, always up for comments and a chat about films and TV.
