The new movie Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, starring Emma Thompson and Dylan McCormack, is a moving, entertaining and powerful look at desire, pleasure, sex work and aging. Thompson plays Nancy Stokes, a retired widow who’s only had one sexual partner, her longtime husband, who passed away two years ago. Nancy hires a male sex worker, Leo Grande, and almost the entire film takes place within the confines of the same hotel room they use for their meetings.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, which is streaming on Hulu, a refreshing in its openness and honesty about sexuality, desire, pleasure and intimacy. Nancy is a bundle of nerves as she waits for Leo, and when he arrives, repeatedly changes the subject from her and the sex they may or may not have. She asks him questions about his job, clearly concerned that she may be participating in his exploitation, which he very firmly assures her she’s not. She reveals that she’s doesn’t get along with her adult children, has never had an orgasm, and sex with her husband was routine and devoid of her pleasure. Eventually, after much hesitation and deliberation, she allows herself to let him touch her, which the audience only sees, not hears.
Over the course of their next encounters, the two do far more talking as they do anything involving sex, with her need to get to know Leo as a person in order to feel comfortable part of her process. Nancy enters their second session with a list of sexual activities she wants to try: performing a blow job, receiving cunnilingus, 69, and two sex positions, her on top and doggy style. But we quickly see that despite her formal approach to the list, a lifetime of sexual repression cannot be undone by simply checking items off a list.
The interplay between Nancy and Leo, who reveals more about himself and his family than he’s likely used to, is fascinating to watch. The buildup of both their getting to know one another, and Nancy’s push/pull toward being the kind of sexual woman she’s long dreamed off while warring with her past as a religious education teacher who believes sex work is wrong, is portrayed expertly by both actors. Leo’s confidence in his body, in his right to both give and receive pleasure, contrast with Nancy’s qualms, which radiate off of her whether she’s speaking or not, about her body, her desirability, and whether or not she has the right to explore sexual satisfaction at her age. The film is an insightful look at the fears Nancy, and many of us, have about pursuing our sexual desires, as well as a stinging critique to critics of sex work.
Of the film, Emma Thompson told NPR:
What’s so wonderful about the story is that Leo is not there to give Nancy her orgasm, that’s not his purpose.
Another thing that’s so irresistible about the film is that Leo’s interested in pleasure for its own sake, and a feeling that it’s something that everyone can have, but that a lot of people find difficult to access, which we know to be the case.
Indeed, what Nancy hires Leo for and the revelations he winds up providing for her are quite different, culminating in the final scenes of the film which show a very changed woman, one confident in her sexual power in a way that will resonate with anyone who’s ever been told that sex should be shameful.
Watch the trailer for Good Luck to You, Leo Grande: