"Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" has a fascinating, and very calculated premise. A sixty-something retired schoolteacher, Nancy (Emma Thompson), has hired a twenty-something sex worker named Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) for a night of intimacy. Nancy is widowed, has never had an orgasm, and is very, very anxious about the encounter. Leo is experienced, patient, and very, very mature about the whole situation. Initially he almost has to act as a therapist, helping to assuage Nancy's worries and get her to accept the idea that what she wants is not wrong, and what she's doing is not evil.
I found myself thinking about "Mass" quite a bit when I was watching "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande." The two films have nothing in common when it comes to subject matter, but they both function in a similar way. The movies are built around emotionally charged conversations about uncomfortable subjects. "Mass" is about the aftermath of a school shooting. "Leo Grande" is about sex and sexuality. Both feel very much like stage plays, taking place largely in a single room with characters who are sometimes a little too convenient in their construction. Both films' successes rest on the actors' performances.
Emma Thompson has never seemed more vulnerable and sympathetic. Nancy has decades of shame and guilt and repression to combat. We learn that she was a religious education teacher who bought in to the culture of sexual prudery that has made her so unhappy. The first third of the film is the most broadly comedic, as Nancy keeps trying to talk her way out of the hotel room, unleashing torrents of exposition and character details as a defense mechanism. Thompson is simultaneously hilarious and wonderfully tragic, as Nancy admits to finding her grown children boring, and describing a moribund, tedious sex life. At one point she declares that hiring Leo has been the only adventurous thing she's ever done in her life, and coming from Thompson it's terribly touching.
Leo initially seems too perfect, until we gradually learn that his persona is a carefully maintained fiction, and there's much more going on underneath. McCormack is a relative newcomer, but pairs wonderfully with Thompson. It's so gratifying to watch their relationship form, and the power dynamics in play. Leo is incredibly attractive, not only because of his physical attributes, but because he maintains such an unflappable, undemanding presence throughout. He's so secure in his virility and so perceptive and attentive to Nancy's needs that it's no wonder she finds him so unnerving at first. Leo is the trickier role because so much of him is fantasy, and his reality is closely guarded - I don't think all the offered pieces quite fit - but McCormack strikes a good balance and has the charisma to pull it off.
Directed by Sophie Hyde and written by Katy Brand, "Leo Grande" never feels like the COVID project we know it is. There's such a necessary intimacy to the actors in the frame, and such an appealing frankness to the dialogue. It always feels like this is a story that could only take place in this specific, narrow set of circumstances, and would be all but impossible outside the confines of a hotel room. I like the way they treat sex, as something natural and to be celebrated, but also a very private and very personal matter. There's nudity in the film, including full frontal shots, but we don't get to those until we've fully gotten to know the characters first - particularly Nancy with all her fears and apprehensions about her body. The camera slowly shows us more and more - not in any salacious way - but mirroring Nancy's own level of comfort.
It's somehow very strange and yet wonderful that such a minimalist film can feel so novel, particularly in 2022. None of these issues or viewpoints are new, but there's something about the attitude and the directness of the storytelling that hit a nerve with me. At the same time, this is ultimately a feel-good film aimed at women of a certain age, one that doesn't ever feel pandering or disingenuous. "Leo Grande" took me completely by surprise, and at the time of writing, this is my favorite film of the year.
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