Movie Details
Movie: Good Luck to You/Chúc May Mắn and Leo Grande (2022)
Director: Sophie Hyde
Cast: Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormackIsa and Isabella Laughland
Movie Genres: Comedy/Romance
Release date: 17 June 2022
IMDB Rating: 7.2/10
Languages: English
Duration: 1h 37m
Trailer
Synopsis
The new conversational film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande by Australian director Sophie Hyde enjoyed its debut at the Karlovy Vary festival. So you could read the first impressions of it in one of our festival micro-reviews. As a man on the verge of thirty, now have the nice duty of developing this sex education for people over sixty into a full-fledged review. It is a task for which you naturally could not find a more suitable person. But as you will soon find out, I will warmly recommend this pleasant hour and a half in the cinema to absolutely everyone.
The film tells the story of Nancy, an elderly teacher with the face of two-time Oscar winner Emma Thompson, whose husband died a few years ago and she finally gathered enough courage to at least try to revive her sexual desires. However, since she suspects that such a thing will not go well with men her age, and the younger ones will not just pack up, she decides to use the services of an attractive gigolo named Leo Grande aka “Mr. Big“. In his first major film role, Leo was portrayed by the Irish handsome Daryl McCormack and as much as this couple may initially seem mismatched for many reasons – very soon the viewer discovers that Nancy and Leo can not only understand each other beautifully but that the novice McCormack is not an inch behind the excellent Thompson as an actor because not a single character leaves the screen for the entire duration of the film, is a real casting hit.
The film takes place almost entirely in one hotel room and is interspersed with only one scene from a cafe near the lobby. So forget about the giant romance with dozens of characters like in Heavenly Love, but what the British classic and this novelty are very close to is the style of humor and dialogue. First of all, we have Thompson, who I don’t want to be mean and say that she is playing herself, but she is clearly playing a character written literally on her body. Nancy spews out one sentence after another, while her character understandably panics about every five seconds during the first (and second) meeting with the calm, well-read, and well-behaved Leo. At the same time, this often gives rise to downright brilliant verbal exchanges combining dry humor and naturalness, which is far from always the rule in similar films.
In addition to shame and various insecurities about her body and experiences (not only has she never had an orgasm, but she has never even tried more than one position. Nancy also deals with the motivations of Leo himself. How disgusting is sex with an older woman to him? What would his mother say about his life? Why doesn’t he still leave after being offered to get paid without sex? The film quickly slides from question to question, from topic to topic, managing all the time not only to entertain with unexpectedly funny situations but at the same time to portray both main characters responsibly, so that the director successfully sells even more serious and tense moments. There are quite a few of them in the film, even though it is mainly a comedy and drama at its place here in particular that makes you feel like the film is more than just a humorous generational statement.
Thanks to the moderate footage and the fact that each of the three total meetings of Nancy and Leo is different from the previous one, the film never feels repetitive and certainly does not manage to get boring. We can talk about the fact that the first act is the fastest, funniest in terms of dialogues and draws the audience to its side the most, because the first meeting between Nancy and Leo is simply the best passage of the entire film, but the remaining two-thirds are not far behind and especially the pre-final meeting together with a follow-up sequence that I would sum up as Emma Thompson with no clothes and no inhibitions. She has something going for her. It must be said that the film comes to these scenes gradually, and organically, and when it comes to them at the end, you feel that they are completely deserved. It is such a sweet victory for a woman who has finally unlocked what has been binding her all her life. For some it might be too expressive, nothing can be done about it, but I don’t remember the last time I cheered for a character like this at the end. In addition, thanks to this, the film manages to avoid the vast majority of genre clichés, which is just another plus in my book.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is above all, a very bold romantic conversationalist who approaches the subject with great sensitivity and thanks to great acting. She manages to sell everything in her heart. It’s a film that will genuinely entertain you, surprise you in more serious moments, and perhaps even shock you a little at the end because of how far the female lead decided to go to tell everyone the good old truth that age is just a number. Within the genre, it could easily become one of the classics over time.
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