Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Sophie Hyde, 2022) Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack

There are two contrary movements here, one, in the plot, in the direction of the sexualisation of the female body, and the other, in the experience of the viewer, in the opposite direction: its desexualisation.

Film-goers in the UK probably haven't noticed a little film made in faraway Western Australia, but it has a title which could have done for this one: How to Please a Woman. However, there's a joke in Renée Webster's 2021 film's title: it turns out women really want is a man to do their housework for them.

Another film which may have been forgotten by the Poms is Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012 though it won a couple of Oscars in 2013 and Emmanuelle Riva was nominated for the award of Best Actress. In my one-sentence wrap-up of the noms for that year I called it a 'training film for geriatric nurses and hospice carers.' (It is also revelatory in the same way as LG.)

I see this film, Leo Grande (LG), also as a mainly 'educational' film, its raison d'être being to persuade people (of both sexes, but especially women, and especially slightly older people) to accept and enjoy the bodies they happen to have. 'Leo Grande' (McCormack) is a sex-worker, but the educational experience is not really about sex so much as about accepting that sexuality is one of the body's functions, and that's OK.

As for assessment, I thought the acting and script were both good. There is a third actor, by the way, though crits say that it's all only just the two of them. There's a girl who plays a waitress called Becky, who I thought should have had a bit of a sparkle in her eyes at the end of her scene, given what's just been revealed. Cameo fail.

Hmm. I should go back to my first paragraph and explain what I mean by 'desexualisation'. I got the term from Renée Webster (see above) who said it was one of her aims in making her film. It is not beside the point that LG is led by one of the most highly-regarded of British actresses, and there's a certain tension from the beginning as the viewer wonders (worries?) how much Emma Thompson is going to reveal, at the age of 62. As Wikipedia reveals (see below: so I'm the first to spoil) it's everything. And so ho-hum, glad that's over, what a relief! The two trajectories, sexualisation (within the character) and desexualisation (in the viewer) occur simultaneously. And that is, literally, THE END.

References and Links

The Wikipedia page gives a complete summary of the story, including the ending, and links to interviews with the two main cast members.

IMDb page for Sophie Hyde, who is Australian. This is her third feature film as director.

Garry Gillard | New: 11 February, 2023 | Now: 14 February, 2023