Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a deeply sensual film about discovering desire

Don’t let a simple summary of a sex worker movie fool you – this film is deeply erotic in the best way.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is in cinemas now.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is an exposing film in more ways than one.

It’s a sexually explicit story with many instances of nudity and involving one character who’s never had an orgasm and another who is a sex worker.

But perhaps what’s most raw and confronting about Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is that it’s a two-hander. It bravely entrusts the film’s two performers to hold the audience’s full attention, all eyes on them all the time.

If there’s a misstep, there’s nowhere to hide.

Of course, when you have Emma Thompson as one of the two, you know you’re going to get a committed, nuanced and considered performance. Even though she makes everything look effortless, Thompson never phones it in and she never goes for histrionics.

Equally, her scene partner, up-and-coming Irish actor Daryl McCormack, has a grace and meditative gentleness that belies his youth, and he more than commands his own against such a legendary thespian.

If that pairing between Thompson and McCormack didn’t work, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande would’ve fallen over within 10 minutes.

Daryl McCormack and Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. Picture: Roadshow

Thompson stars as Nancy, a widow who has only ever been with one man (her now dead husband) and she has never experienced real pleasure. A former religious education teacher, Nancy has hang-ups galore when it comes to the physicality of her body and entrenched attitudes about the morality of female desire.

Making the decision to hire a sex worker, the titular Leo Grande, was a big deal but at first she sees it as transactional and utilitarian, at one point producing a list of sexual activities she wants to check off, as if it’s nothing more than the grandkids’ Christmas gifts.

Leo starts to break down Nancy’s defences, challenging her to think about sex, her body and herself in transformative ways, while she pushes his buttons in his personal life.

Written by Katy Brand and directed by Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande expertly plays with the difficult demands of balancing the tone of a film that could easily descend into morose melodrama.

It’s light without being flippant, funny without being farcical and emotional without being sentimental.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is directed by Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde.

Nancy is not the character you’ll always like but she is someone you want to cheer for. She can be an arsehole, she can cross boundaries and she can be frustratingly obtuse. But there is an aching vulnerability to her that makes her specificity universal and relatable.

Thompson is always in command of her craft but it’s as if every moment of her career on screen has been leading to this moment. Brand wrote the role with Thompson in mind and the actor slips into the character’s contours and rhythms with ease. They are one – and no doubt the film draws on compassion for Nancy by leveraging that in-built regard for Thompson.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a deeply sensual film. There’s nothing sexier than watching a woman discovering the possibilities of her body after a lifetime of socialised shame – and watching a man respect and empower that journey is truly erotic.

Hyde and her team have created a superb film that is emotionally resonant, provocative and intimate, a work that has heart, brains and soul.

Rating: 4.5/5

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is in cinemas now