Sophie Hyde’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande presents a familiar riff in a somewhat unexpected package: the story of a woman in the midst of a sexual awakening that plays as a two-hander, and set almost entirely within a posh English hotel room. Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) is a widowed retired teacher who hires an escort, Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack), in the hopes of achieving the sexual fulfillment that eluded her throughout her marriage. The narrative doesn’t scream originality, but the filmmakers and performers’ astute and affecting rendering of the main characters largely offsets feelings of familiarity.
Since the vast majority of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande concerns the dealings of only two individuals, much of the film rests entirely on the performances, and Thompson and McCormack compellingly render those moments between their characters, both big and small, that are born out of contrasts. Where Thompson plays Nancy as a bundle of nervous, fidgety energy as the woman attempts to loosen up, McCormack portrays the much younger Leo with a levelheaded and calming restraint, whose deliberate gestures and remarks ooze confidence.
Hyde and screenwriter Katy Brand view sex through a generational lens, suggesting that Nancy and Leo’s behaviors are inextricably tied to their age difference. Where Leo is sexually free, Nancy is very much a product of a repressive period, with Thompson vibrantly expressing how the woman was crushed under the expectations of marriage. The film abounds in honest and at times disarmingly off-the-cuff moments that spring from Nancy’s racing psyche. At one point, while preparing to get down to business with Leo, Nancy casually admits that she feels resentment toward her children because they’ve always felt like a weight around her.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande only loses its footing whenever it shows Nancy and Leo sermonizing about sex work and how it isn’t regarded as a socially acceptable profession. These exchanges, beyond feeling unnecessary, are characterized by a didacticism that awkwardly clashes with Nancy and Leo’s easy rapport. Otherwise, the film refuses to pass judgment on Leo for his chosen métier, depicting him in the end as just another contented working stiff. And it’s to Thompson and McCormack’s credit that their performances resist melodrama and bring subtlety and depth to the film whenever it veers toward the preachy.
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