Good Luck to you, Leo Grande: Movie Review

Cast: Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack
Director: Sophie Hyde

There's nothing like a good actor and a good set of words to make the screen sizzle.

And in Good Luck to you, Leo Grande, the basics of human connection and intimacy are laid raw, in what's most definitely a play-like setting, but which jettisons any feelings that you're simply watching a three act play in structure.

Thompson is widow Nancy Stokes, who checks into a hotel ahead of a rendezvous with an escort, Leo (McCormack, suave and charismatic). But Nancy is riddled with doubts about her fling-to-be, and despite Leo's best intentions and commitment to his job, the situation soon becomes increasingly fraught as time ticks down and the inevitable must happen.

There's no denying that Good Luck to you, Leo Grande is a film about older women having sex - and with this Thompson leads the charge, encapsulating a performance that is both eye-catching and achingly vulnerable. 

From laying out Nancy's neuroses to embracing her age, Thompson is proudly defiant in the role that makes good fist of clever, rich prose to make you remember the power of the word, and that less is more.

But if Thompson roars, equally her counterpoint McCormack is as strong. Less matched verbally than Thompson's Nancy, McCormack's Leo has the requisite amount of both charm and affable screen presence to sell his lothario with aplomb.

As the script begins to examine what 31 years of being with one partner can do to self-esteem and desire, the film flowers and catches universal truths to be espoused on screen - some of which so rarely get voiced.

It may be that in the film's third act, an out-of-leftfield narrative choice feels like the writers needed to lob some unwarranted drama into proceedings, but with general humour, heart and honesty, Good Luck to you, Leo Grande soars.

Good Luck to you, Leo Grande reminds you just what two actors, a director and great script can achieve - not only though is it a testament to the power of good cinema, it's also testament to how desire, compassion and vulnerability in an older screen hero has been forgotten through the years - and how it's time that changed.