Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack appear in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande by Sophie Hyde, an official selection of the Premieres section at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Nick Wall.
We first meet the titular character of Sophie Hyde’s tender dramedy Good Luck To You, Leo Grande as he prepares for an afternoon on the clock. This gorgeous young man (Daryl McCormack) visits an ice cream parlor and playfully saunters down the street as the sound of Childish Gambino covering Brittany Howard’s “Stay High” fills the speakers. Leo Grande has all the confidence of a too-cool-for-school character in a movie, and this is by design. Leo Grande is a character, or at least a persona that this young escort has adopted to fulfill the fantasies of his clientele. Despite what others may believe, he loves his job. He is not a desperate soul being exploited. He is not trying to put himself through school. He is just a man who loves bringing pleasure to others in exchange for money.
This glimpse of the young man getting himself in the headspace to offer the full “Leo Grande Experience” is one of the only times we will see outside of the hotel room that has been booked by his first-time client, Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson). This former teacher and unfulfilled widow has decided she wants to have sex. If you want a job done right, you call a professional, correct? This conclusion feels right for the sensible woman whose neuroses fuels the better part of their first encounter despite Leo’s best efforts to put her at ease. A simple use of the word “empirically” early on disrupts her nerves briefly enough to ratchet up her curiosity about who this young man is when he is not trading his time for money.
Leo may seem too good to be true, but you never get the sense that he is being dishonest with Nancy, at least not in any meaningful way. It is clear that Leo is a very gifted communicator; he takes time to truly listen to every word that Nancy says, and, if he cannot give a clear-cut answer to her multitude of questions, he fully deflects rather than dancing around with a lie. Every action is in service to giving Nancy the pleasure she was lacking in her mechanical 31-year marriage. She confesses she has never had an orgasm, a fact she delivers as a necessary tidbit rather than as a challenge to Leo – maybe it is just not in the cards for her? Nevertheless, she wants a taste of the passion that makes life worth living. She just wants to feel alive.
To get to the place where this actually might happen, Leo must nimbly deconstruct the emotional walls that Nancy has so masterfully built over her lifetime. Over the course of four different meetings, these two treat deep, meaningful conversations like the foreplay that it is. With Leo being a relative stranger, she can admit things to him that she has never dared to tell anyone else: she finds her son a bit dull, and she is not always keen to clean up whatever mess her daughter has created. There are also more personal moments such as the recounting of a moment in her youth while on vacation that piqued her sexual curiosity in a way that the remainder of her life never came close to touching. Leo might be trying to break down barriers with Nancy, but he reluctantly begins to share some personal details about himself as Nancy persists with her inquiries. It is a give and take that grows and evolves beautifully throughout the film.
The screenplay from Katy Brand is incredibly thoughtful and versatile as it navigates the ups and downs of this story. These conversations feel so natural, and the ease with which the tone can weave between something incredibly charming and hopelessly heartbreaking is impressive. There is a good deal of humor that blossoms from Nancy’s discomfort with the scenario she has brought upon herself, but the important point to note is that Nancy’s desires are never treated as a joke. It is incredibly rare that anyone crafts a film that does not treat the idea of older individuals wanting physical intimacy as anything but an easy gag. It is not shameful to want to feel satisfied at any age, and Leo Grande embraces this.
This material allows the great Emma Thompson to deliver one of the best performances of her career. The vulnerability she brings to this role is astounding; a disclosure about her desire to want to experience the feeling of being young again is all too relatable, and Thompson sells the moment in her eyes as someone carrying a lifetime of regret. Much will be made of the lengths she goes to physically for this role, but it is her emotional nakedness that you will be remembering long after the credits have finished rolling. While it may not be a surprise that Thompson is an incredible performer, Daryl McCormack comes out of nowhere as an undeniable force who more than holds his own with the acting icon. His role is more subtle, but the layers he is bringing to the calm-on-the-surface Leo is simply awe-inspiring.
Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is the type of mature and overwhelming piece of art one hopes to experience at least a couple times a year to remind yourself why you fell in love with movies in the first place. The simple act of two people having a conversation is enough to unlock some of the great joys of being alive. Emma Thompson gets the emotionally complex material that someone of her talent deserves, and she devours the part with gusto. Expect to see Daryl McCormack in more projects in the near future, as he brings a radiance to the screen that is undeniable. Together they create a perfect pairing which will go down as one of the most rewarding experiences of the year.
Good Luck To You, Leo Grande had its World Premiere in the Premieres section of Sundance Film Festival 2022.
Director: Sophie Hyde
Writer: Katy Brand
Rated: NR
Runtime: 97m
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
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Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
