Thompson’s Nancy (not her actual identify) is launched throughout her first assembly with a intercourse employee performed by Daryl McCormack, Leo Grande (not his actual identify both), as she apprehensively and clearly ambivalently seeks to avail herself of his providers. Whereas he calmly seeks to reassure her, her biography step by step spills out, together with the dying of her husband two years earlier, and her unsatisfying intercourse life with him all through their lives.
A instructor by coaching, Nancy approaches the entire train with an virtually scientific sense of curiosity that may be very, very humorous, effectively conscious of the absurdities of this association, and able to again out at a second’s discover. She peppers Leo with questions on the way it all works logistically, whereas pushing for private particulars that he solely grudgingly offers.
Written by Katy Model and directed by Sophie Hyde, “Leo Grande” overcomes the claustrophobia of the premise and framing by way of the sheer high quality of the performances, together with McCormack, an Irish actor maybe finest identified stateside for “Peaky Blinders.”
Nonetheless, Thompson offers the movie’s emotional core, taking part in a lady in her mid-50s who says, “I wish to play at feeling younger once more,” speaks overtly about by no means having skilled an orgasm and expresses concern early on that by doing this she’s “only a seedy previous pervert.”
“Leo Grande” may simply be jokey or overly sentimental, however the film largely avoids these pitfalls. And those that dwell on the “physique positivity” component, which is actually a advertising hook, should not miss the underlying themes not solely about accepting who you’re however lamenting missed alternatives and roads not taken, which resonate in a really common method.
So good luck to you, certainly, “Leo Grande,” in addition to to Nancy and Leo (once more, not their actual names).
“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” premieres June 17 on Hulu.
