REVIEW: Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Sheds a New Light on Sex
In Hulu’s new movie, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, after the passing of her husband two years prior, Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) wants to step out from under her mundane life and feel something again. To do this, she enlists the help of sex worker Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) in hopes he can help bring some spark back into her life. What she finds though is a human connection she was not intending and things about herself she never knew.
This movie is an extremely sex positive movie. Writer Katy Brand does a wonderful job crafting real conversations about sex and the awkwardness that comes with it. Thompson’s Stokes represents many people in the world who are not comfortable talking about sex and all the things that come with it, while McCormack’s Grande represents a smaller amount of the world who is the complete opposite. His character is completely comfortable talking about the subject and continuously pushes the idea that it is not bad for people to have their sexual needs met.
It was lovely to watch Thompson and McCormack build their characters relationship on screen. The two’s back and forth banter created good comedic moments while their more dramatic moments were filled with awkward tension only found when people are talking about topics that make them uncomfortable. Thompson’s character conveys a number of different emotions throughout the movie and the actor easily transitions through everyone one of them. McCormack, on the other hand, ability to stay calm, cool, and collected through Thompson’s transitions is fun to watch unfold on screen.
As the only two characters in the movie, the two had to work that much harder to keep the audience engaged, but the story doesn’t really lend itself to a two-person cast. I think if they had added one or two more characters to the mix, the story would have been a little more engaging. Don’t get me wrong, the story is good but it all could have been condensed into a much shorter movie. It felt incomplete at parts, namely the conclusion of the story. Director Sophie Hyde and Band crafted a great climax, which is brilliantly played out by Thompson and McCormack, but the conclusion does not do it justice. It was as if they ran out of time and needed to throw something together real fast to end the movie.
The movie can be best described as simple. Simple in the fact that it only featured two actors, one set, and one set storyline. Hyde and Band never deviated from the story and made sure nothing distracted from the topic at hand, sex. This movie is not going to be for everyone, but if you are looking for something to check out on a rainy day, I suggest giving this a short.
Grade: B-