Good Luck To You, Leo Grande

UK Release Date. 17 June 2022
Certification. 15 
Running Time. 1 hour 37 mins
Director. Sophie Hyde
Cast. Daryl McCormack, Emma Thompson.
Rating. 69%

Review.

In a long and distinguished career, Good Luck To You, Leo Grande must surely be one of Emma Thompson's most courageous, and one of her most accomplished, performances.

Thompson plays Nancy, a relatively recently widowed, retired and repressed RE teacher looking to broaden her sexual experience. She hires a male prostitute - the eponymous Leo Grande, played by an insanely charming, eloquent and patient Daryl McCormack.

What follows, is frankly a play. A play committed to celluloid. One deftly handled by Australian filmmaker, Sophie Hyde for the most part. Combined with impressive performances from Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack, whose genuine chemistry undoubtedly enlivens a weak script. 

In many ways, Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is an extraordinary film. Only in the third act, which partly takes place away from the hotel bedroom, does the film falter as Sophie Hyde attempts to tidy up the storyline rather too neatly.

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is a film that dares to put sexagenarian sexuality at its core, tackling the taboo subject of post-menopausal desire with wit, flair and welcome realism. Quite apart from her naked courage - in one scene, Thompson presents her naked body to the camera with a relaxed pride - Thompson captures the dilemmas of age with subtlety, fragility and believability. Nancy speaks openly about her feelings of inadequacy; she is plagued by self-doubt and physical insecurities. These insecurities are bound to her belief that she doesn't deserve sexual gratification.