Good luck to you, Leo Grande review

There is no shortage of sexual awakening stories around the experience of young women in the big O for the first time. Sadly, too many women go through life without orgasm, and this is where comedian and screenwriter Katy Brand stepped in to fill that void with orgasm. With Sophie Hyde as the director, this is a compelling, bubbly and uplifting two-handed story about female pleasure from a mature woman’s perspective. Together with Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack, Brand and Hyde have captured that particularly dry and down-to-earth style of humor so typical of British romantic comedies, with a positive sexual touch.

Thompson gives us everything. As an award-winning screenwriter, it is absolutely clear that the actress has personally and creatively invested herself in her repressed former teacher. Nancy is a torrent of contradictions: vulnerable and assertive, liberal but sexually conservative, outspoken but easily embarrassed by terms like “anal sex”. She may be her older woman, but at first Thompson plays her almost as a 16-year-old girl about to pop her icing, her wide-eyed self-doubt and nervous energy vibrating through. her body. As Aubrey Plaza’s teenage feminist lead in The list of activitiesHe has a catalog of carnal pleasures to try for the first time and Leo is the man to do it.

McCormack, a reassuring contrast to his severely injured client, serves as a charismatic receptacle for Thompson’s anxious stream of consciousness, as well as a mirror for his generational bias. Although he sympathizes with the chaotic way Nancy reveals her sexual fears and desires, Leo’s patient mask rarely slips; it is only your questions about your life, your aspirations and your reasons for being in your profession that unbalance your balance. The underlying tension isn’t entirely torn apart, but grows as McCormark’s placid demeanor changes, forcing both of them to ask deeper questions.

A hotel room in Norwich sets the stage for this tête-à-tête; its beige decoration with soft colors does not distract and extinguishes any erotic charge. It is not without sensuality – sometimes the camera delights in the bodies of both – but the naturalistic lighting grounds the encounter in an uncomfortable transactional reality. By navigating the dynamics of power between the client and the prostitute, the older white woman and the young biracial, Brand could have dug a little deeper instead of tying things together in such an orderly fashion. But avoiding racial clichés and moments of exploitation, his script goes to great lengths to dissect the ambiguities around shameless sex and sex work, with much compassion and welcome comic relief. With a bold direction, this is a healthy family game that every man and woman should take the time to.