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‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’ Review: Pleasure Principles

Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack bring knowing vulnerability to this amusing story of a foxy prostitute and the woman who hires him.

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movie review good luck to you leo grande

By Lisa Kennedy

If “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” were a book, it might make a fine choice for a tipsy book club evening. And although the film about an older woman hiring a male prostitute feels ever so briefly like an updated tease of romance-novel fantasies, as directed by Sophie Hyde and written by Katy Brand, “Leo Grande” proves to be a tart and tender probe into sex and intimacy, power dynamics and human connection.

The actors Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack find and then build steadily on the appealing and complex chemistry of their characters as this two-hander unfolds in a mildly posh, yet nondescript hotel room. The film starts with the satiny handsome Leo walking down a street with greet-the-day ease; he’s a professional getting into character. He knocks on the door of a hotel room where Nancy Stokes awaits. She has secured his services, but is still nervous about that decision. Upon Leo’s arrival, Nancy begins nattering — a lot. She has cause to: She’s a retired schoolteacher and widow; and she’s never done anything remotely like this. And by “this” we mean take her own pleasure seriously.

Leo is a sex-positive, 20-something from Ireland. His familial ties are frayed, and Nancy tugs on those threads out of interest, out of guilt, but also to reassert control when she feels exposed. Issues of class figure into her judgments; but the movie feels oddly mum about race. (McCormack is biracial.)

While Nancy might not be limber enough for every sexual position on her check list (for which she dons reading glasses to consult), Thompson is terrifically agile with the script’s zingers and revelations. A relative newcomer, McCormack moves between wit, compassion and vulnerability with grace. In the most transactional sense, Nancy gets even better than what she paid for. Thanks to Thompson and McCormack’s delicate dance, so will audiences.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Rated R for sexual content, nudity and some blue language. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Hulu.

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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande review: Emma Thompson hires a gigolo in this sweet, nuanced comedy

Screenwriter katy brand doesn’t settle for easy sentiment in this refreshing two-hander, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Sophie Hyde. Starring: Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack, Isabella Laughland, Charlotte Ware, Carina Lopes. 15, 97 minutes.

“I want to do a blow job,” Emma Thompson ’s Nancy announces in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande . “Get that sorted.” She throws those words out as if she were reminding herself to get the oil changed in her car – mechanically, even a little irritably. Nancy’s husband died two years ago. He was the only man she’d ever had sex with, and none of it was particularly good. All of it missionary. She’s never had an orgasm, and doesn’t expect to anytime soon. But there’s a laundry list of sexual activities that she feels compelled to work through, as if they were obligatory steps to earning her womanhood badge. So she hires a sex worker, who calls himself Leo Grande.

When Leo ( Peaky Blinders ’s Daryl McCormack) describes Nigella Lawson as “sexy” without any deflating qualifiers (“…for her age”), Nancy’s taken aback. Who the hell is this guy? Which Jackie Collins novel did he and his perfect set of abs just step out of? Good Luck to You, Leo Grande could easily have been packaged up as the kind of feel-good feminist power anthem that privileges personal liberation above all. But screenwriter Katy Brand, a regular on the British comedy circuit, hasn’t settled for easy sentiment. Empowerment is only one piece of the puzzle, which together forms a refreshingly nuanced portrait of sex work, desire and self-perception.

Nancy, a retired religious education teacher, describes how she used to assign her pupils the essay question, “should sex work be made legal?” They’d always reply with the same thing: “Although the moral issues remain up for debate, the legalisation of sex work would ultimately provide protection for sex workers and help eradicate trafficking and abuse.” We’re led to believe Nancy shares that view.

But, though morally sound, there’s a certain emotional detachment to that answer. Sex work, even among the progressively minded, is still treated as something to be kept out of sight and out of mind. There’s crushingly little agency given to those who pursue it. And so Nancy, when faced with Leo’s easy confidence, immediately launches into a full-blown interrogation: is he an orphan? Has he been trafficked? When was the last time he saw his mother? Is she exploiting him? She demands Leo give up the veil of anonymity so essential to his work – both are using fake names, of course – purely to satisfy her own conscience.

‘There’s nothing unethical about sex on camera’: Meet the makers of Pleasure, 2022’s most daring film

Sophie Hyde, whose 2019 directorial effort Animals tackled toxic friendships with equal savvy, makes the most of the film’s fixed location. We’re confined entirely to Nancy’s hotel room, minus a brief sojourn to a cafe and the hotel’s bar. The place is sterile but elegant, as mid-priced hotels tend to be. There’s nowhere, really, for these characters to run. Nothing, either, to distract them from the bare-faced truth of what’s brought them here.

Thompson has always done flummoxed like no other, and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande isn’t any different. But less expected from the actor is the harshness that creeps into her voice at certain moments. Who exactly is this woman outside this room? Beyond this conversation? We’re left to wonder. McCormack, meanwhile, does a sublime job of essentially playing two characters: the self-assured and chivalrous Leo Grande, and the man who lives behind him. We’re offered only the smallest of glimpses. “I made him and I’m proud of him,” he says of Leo. Hyde’s film is generous in that way – it understands that he deserves to feel good about himself just as much as Nancy does.

‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’ is in cinemas from Friday 17 June

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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Reviews

movie review good luck to you leo grande

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is a delight and likely one of the best comedies we’re going to see in 2022.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Apr 24, 2024

movie review good luck to you leo grande

In conclusion, Good Luck, Leo Grande reflects movingly and insightfully on shame, sexual connection, and emotional frustrations with a bittersweet flavor that manages to entertain us, but also make us think.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Dec 28, 2023

movie review good luck to you leo grande

There’s a vulnerability in every aspect of the film that makes it endearing, essential viewing.

Full Review | Aug 6, 2023

movie review good luck to you leo grande

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande plays out in a conventional way that resembles that of a theatre play because of its intimate nature and attention to dialogue, but that is actually a bold choice

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 1, 2023

movie review good luck to you leo grande

It is a two-hander that could have been easily a stage play but director Sophie Hyde and writer Katy Brand take risks to deliver this charming exploration of human desires between two top performing actors.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

movie review good luck to you leo grande

Great performances Engaging dialogue And a charming feature

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

movie review good luck to you leo grande

The most significant achievement of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is the film's impressive ability to create a safe environment where the often uncomfortable topics become comfortable within everyday conversation.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 23, 2023

movie review good luck to you leo grande

A movie that so welcomingly embraces body positivity through sensual intimacy — in a culture where body image is such a pressing issue — is a goddamn treasure and deserves to be lifted up.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 19, 2023

movie review good luck to you leo grande

There's too much foreplay in this portrayal of repression as the enemy of fulfillment, but Leo Grande also finds wit, charm, and a seamless mix of laughs and pathos along the way. It's informed by kindness and respect.

Full Review | May 30, 2023

movie review good luck to you leo grande

Ironically enough such movies are slotted as niche, but the emotion here is universal.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 17, 2023

The two leads are terrific in a witty sex-positive bedroom farce that seduces and satisfies.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 1, 2023

A very likable sample of a periodic rarity, a first-rate film actress making a serious film about female sexuality with as much frankness and even nudity as the era will permit.

Full Review | Jan 23, 2023

movie review good luck to you leo grande

This little film is one huge step forward in sex positive cinema. I honestly want to recommend it to everyone, no matter how experienced they may be with sex already. Everyone can learn something from this.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Dec 30, 2022

movie review good luck to you leo grande

Daryl McCormack graced us with stellar performances...

Full Review | Dec 27, 2022

More than a mere philosophical exercise, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is sweet, sexy, and certainly the new favorite film of Father Intintola from The Sopranos.

Full Review | Dec 14, 2022

movie review good luck to you leo grande

Hyde splashes the story with sincere, touching, and sparkling moments that invite empathy, approaching emotions not yet discovered with caution. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Nov 29, 2022

movie review good luck to you leo grande

If we ever had a preconceived idea of ​​the patterns that govern a relationship, it's very likely that this film will transform it, with its risky subject, experimental tone, and theatrical style. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: B | Oct 6, 2022

movie review good luck to you leo grande

Leo tells Nancy he is there to fulfil her fantasy, but she is compelled to keep digging obsessively in search of reality.

Full Review | Sep 22, 2022

movie review good luck to you leo grande

An unconventional, “march to its own beat” film that slowly lays into you, story-wise. The beginning is simple and interesting enough for most proper age groups to digest it, which helps the buy-in factor when the tone gets more serious.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 9, 2022

A tennis match of gestures and talks, and if it reaches fruition is because the performers escalate towards similar heights: he, with forced and yapping gallantry; her, with the dramatic flair of wearing her emotions on her skin. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 2, 2022

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‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’ Review: Emma Thompson Gets in Touch With Her Sensual Side in a Gripping Two-Hander

Seduction is the focus of this riveting conversation piece in which Emma Thompson's buttoned-up teacher hires — and rejects — a male sex worker.

By Amy Nicholson

Amy Nicholson

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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande - Variety Critic's Pick

In the opening sequence of Sophie Hyde ’s riveting “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” a suave young man ( Daryl McCormack ) steps out of an ice cream parlor, catches a mint candy in his mouth, and swings around a street pole like a hipster Gene Kelly. The Irishman is confidently cool — and not quite himself. He’s getting into character as Leo Grande, a charming sex worker who sells the Leo Grande Fantasy: a “service,” he calls it, where he gives paying customers exactly what they need, be it physical release, conversation or, for one client, dressing like a cat. But Katy Brand’s screenplay is only focused on Leo’s interactions with one customer: Nancy ( Emma Thompson ), a widowed religious studies teacher pacing a blandly attractive hotel room, panicked that she’s made a mistake. What’s her fantasy, Leo asks. Nancy chokes on her own desires. “To have sex? Tonight? With you ? Do you mind ?”

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The set-up of this intimate talkie sounds like middle-aged wish fulfillment — “How Teach Got Her Groove Back” — with Nancy checking off her handwritten list of erotic firsts courtesy of a kind and generous twenty-something she calls a “sexual saint.” (She even pinches Leo’s arm to prove he’s real.) But Hyde’s insight is that Leo isn’t real. He’s a performance, a put-on, an actor of sorts conscientiously projecting sensitivity and patience while nervous Nancy peppers him with questions. Does he feel demeaned? Does he use Viagra? Is he a trafficked orphan? What’s the oldest woman he’s had sex with? Why is he doing this? What does his mother think? The first three answers are no, no and no. The others, Leo parries with deflections, candor or lies. Like a therapist, he tries to figure out what response Nancy needs to hear. And he’s not always correct. When he suggests roleplaying sexy teacher and naughty student, Nancy gags.

Popular on Variety

Hyde’s film is a psychological conversation piece titillated by the potential of sex. (There isn’t much onscreen until it ends with a graphic montage that feels included to prove Thompson’s faith in the project.) Over Nancy and Leo’s sessions together, they fall into a pattern: He struggles to set the mood, and she smashes it. But while Thompson’s character does most of the talking, in the moments she excuses herself to hide in the bathroom, Bryan Mason’s camera prefers to stay with him. Leo lets his smile go slack. He studies himself in the mirror. And then when his client reemerges, he snaps back into character. Leo Grande is fake. But the work it takes to be Leo Grande is genuine.

Thompson’s neurotic is alternately sympathetic and aggravating. Her Nancy tips over into comedy — there’s a negligee gag that’s played for an easy laugh — and the score can get overly playful, as though it, too, is anxious to put the audience at ease. Yet, Nancy’s lust is never the joke. Thompson commits to revealing the full woman, quite literally. While the film finds it tragic that Nancy is so uncomfortable in her own skin, she’s also condescending to waiters, priggish about her female students’ mini-skirts, and ashamed of her own adult children — one for having too much fun, the other for not having enough. She’s unsatisfied by her entire life, and she’s in part to blame. And despite her snobbery, she’s also not rich enough to pay for Leo indefinitely. That adds to the tension when she presents him with a list of five positions she claims she’s eager to try and instructs him to get on with it, even though her body language says otherwise.

McCormack is fantastic in a role so subtle it could appear flatlined and phony if people aren’t paying attention. He’s forced to keep his voice as steady as a horse tamer; the energy flows through his eyes. His Leo stares at Nancy, absorbs her, and through his rapt attention silently tries to convince her that to him, in this moment, she’s the only woman in the world. Steve Fanagan’s sound design casts a similar spell. Once Leo enters the hotel, the film never leaves. We become hyper-aware of the sound of socks on carpet and hands rustling over shirt collars and hair. Leo and Nancy’s hotel room begins to feel like sacred ground. (Composer Stephen Rennicks isn’t above adding music that harkens to a religious choir). “There are nuns out there with more sexual experience than me,” Nancy quips. Yes, but here, pleasure is both sacred and practical, a wobbly balance that seduces the audience, too.

Reviewed at Rodeo Screening Room, Los Angeles, Jan. 18, 2022. In Sundance Film Festival (Premieres). Running time: 97 MIN.

  • Production: (U.K.) A Searchlight Pictures release of an Align presentation of a Genesius Pictures production. (World sales: Cornerstone, London.) Producers: Debbie Gray, Adrian Politowski. Executive producers: Katy Brand, Sophie Hyde, Alison Thompson, Mark Gooder, Julian Gleek, Martin Metz, Nessa McGill, Nadia Khamlichi.
  • Crew: Director: Sophie Hyde. Screenplay: Katy Brand. Camera, editor: Bryan Mason. Music: Stephen Rennicks.
  • With: Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack.

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  • Entertainment
  • <i>Good Luck To You, Leo Grande</i> Is the Perfect Movie For Anyone Who Feels Invisible

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande Is the Perfect Movie For Anyone Who Feels Invisible

O lder women’s bodies, not to mention their sexuality, are something no one wants to think or talk about, least of all older women themselves. What everyone tells you when you’re young eventually becomes true: at a certain age—maybe 50, maybe 60—you become invisible to most other people on the street, especially men. But at that point, you may find, it’s other women your age and older who look at you more. We look to see what others are doing with their hair, how they’re dealing with the post-middle-age tummy situation, what colors they choose now that some of the old favorites no longer suit. In my experience, it’s less like competition and more like camaraderie. We’re all being not looked at, together.

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande —from Australian director Sophie Hyde, with a script by Katy Brand—is the first great movie, in a long time, for the invisibles. Emma Thompson plays Nancy Stokes, a 55-year-old widow whose sex life did the trick for her in the conceiving-children department—she has two, now grown—but which has otherwise been distinctly routine and unsatisfactory. And so she has hired a sex worker, a handsome charmer named Leo (Daryl McCormack, from Peaky Blinders ), to see if he might help her find whatever has been missing, if it’s findable at all.

When Leo comes to the hotel room she’s rented, they spend a great deal of time talking—or, rather, Leo, one of those people who has a gift for putting others at ease, tries to tease her out of her fluttery nervousness, which carries more than a whiff of judgment about Leo himself. She asks him if his mother knows what he does for a living, a subject he clearly doesn’t want to talk about. She wants to know if he’s a damaged runaway with a hard-luck story. In this misguided way, she seems to be assuaging her own guilt and shame. It takes nearly forever, but Leo finally makes her see that social-working her way toward an orgasm is not going to work.

leogrande-still

The first visit, or at least as much as we see of it, ends with a kiss. But there are second and third visits, during which Nancy slowly lets down her guard while Leo does all the work of loosening her grip on her own self-degrading ideas about her looks, her aging body, her life. They spend time in bed—there’s sex in Leo Grande, I think, or maybe it’s really just more the suggestion of sex. In any event, the movie is sexy, not least because it revels in the idea that great sex comes from a connection that goes beyond what’s merely physical—and this can be true, of course, even when the sex is paid for. Leo loves what he does, and he’s good at it, because he likes talking to women and finding out what they want and need. Nancy is the one who tries to hang onto her shame and projects it onto him, almost to the point where he gives up on her. His patience in bed is infinite, but when Nancy crosses a line into his private life, we too suddenly see him as a human being with certain fragilities, in addition to being a gorgeous companion for hire, a person adept at playing different roles to please different people.

Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek

Hyde and Brand tackle all of these delicate ideas with agility and humor, and the repartee—including the arguments—between Nancy and Leo feel lived in, like rumpled sheets. McCormack is wonderful, playing a guy who’s confident in his own beauty without being a jerk about it. There’s a fantastic moment when, on his way to meet Nancy for the first time, he stops to check his reflection in a shop window, straightening his coat with a look that tells us he knows how fine he is.

But the trick is that as much as he likes the way he looks, he’s still more interested in looking at others. And when his gaze falls on Nancy, she can hardly find joy in it. When we first see her, she’s entering that hotel room in a dowdy skirt, with prim shoes that don’t help (she’s a former religious-ed teacher, and she dresses like it.) She changes into a pair of suede kitten heels—much better. And after Leo arrives, she gets up the courage to slip into the bathroom to change into a slinky peignoir ensemble—having forgotten, of course, to remove the price tag under her armpit, as Leo later discovers, teasing her about it.

leogrande-1

Thompson has always been a terrific actor , but she reaches a new plane here, a place where her vulnerability as a person and her confidence as a performer mesh into something glorious. She’s unafraid to explore Nancy’s prickliness—some of the things she says to Leo are simply awful, betraying a deep judgmental streak. The film is beautifully shot—never has hotel-room light looked so meltingly sensual and luxurious. And that serves Thompson well, too. She’s gorgeous to look at, not because she has no wrinkles (she does), but because her skin is so luminous. Every wrinkle-obsessed 20- or 30-year-old needs to see Good Luck To You, Leo Grande to unlock an essential secret before it’s too late: you can have a dull, expressionless face with zero wrinkles, but great skin plus wrinkles is actually a fabulous look.

The movie’s most exhilarating moment comes at the very end, a moment in which Nancy surveys herself in the mirror, almost fully nude. We see everything she does—the sagging skin around the stomach, the breasts that have given up trying to defy gravity. Thompson, who is 63, has talked about this scene in interviews , stressing how difficult it was for her, a woman who has always been unhappy about her body, to bare all in this way. But she must know—or let’s hope she knows—that the look on her face, on Nancy’s face, as she surveys and at last makes peace with this weathered landscape of a body, is like the click of a light switch. To spend even a moment being miserable in our skin, as we all are at times, is to disrespect how far it has taken us. We know that in our hearts, but Thompson puts the truth right out there, for everyone to see.

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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande review: Emma Thompson finds more than sex in tender, taboo-breaking dramedy

Thompson's retired widow hires a male escort, then gets more than she bargained for in the charming Sundance breakout Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.

movie review good luck to you leo grande

Insisting that a film about hiring a male escort is actually about intimacy sounds like some kind of reverse Pretty Woman fantasy. And Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (on Hulu June 17) seems at first like it might be another, more familiar kind of movie: How Emma Got Her Groove Back . But Sophie Hyde's two-handed chamber piece turns out to be bolder and sweeter and less predictable than that: a tender coming-of-late-middle-age drama with a quietly radical idea of self-acceptance at its center.

Emma Thompson stars as Nancy Stokes, a sensible-looking widow who decides, after a passionless 31-year marriage, to finally find out what all the fuss is about by hiring a young Irishman who calls himself Leo Grande ( The Wheel of Time 's Daryl McCormack) to do the job professionally. When he shows up to her tastefully generic hotel room, Leo seems like the full package: a golden-skinned Adonis who gently deflects her steady stream of neuroses and breezily uses words like "empirically." (That last bit especially is catnip to Nancy, a retired teacher).

He may be an expert, but she makes it clear he shouldn't get his hopes up; she's gone a whole lifetime without an orgasm, and two hours with a handsome stranger won't change that. But she would like before she dies to feel the touch of a man who does things differently, which doesn't sound hard: For three decades, her late husband's lovemaking had all the intensity and eroticism of an oil change. To attempt to fix that, though, Leo will first have to break down an emotional wall so well constructed that even as he's trying to kiss her neck, Nancy can't seem to stop piling on the bricks.

If she didn't, there wouldn't be much of a movie. And the consummations that follow in several separate sessions happen tastefully off-screen, at least initially — secondary to the long, looping conversations that become their foreplay. She admits that she might not crazy about her grown son ("boring") and daughter (flighty, bohemian, always in a crisis); he allows her to grill him on his education and upbringing (his mother believes he works on an oil rig). But Hyde (who made 2020's great, underseen Animals ) and writer Katy Brand have a longer game in mind beyond Nancy's big O.

McCormack's Leo may be entirely too dreamy to believably be bookable by the hour (if a show like Bridgerton doesn't immediately pick him up, they're crazy), but he's remarkably winning in the role, bringing layers that belie his character's early, easy charm: when Nancy, drunk on her new empowerment, crosses a line, he reclaims his time with a hurt and fury that shocks her. And Thompson is, unsurprisingly, a force: alternately brittle and vulnerable and mordantly witty, her whole body vibrating with a lifetime's worth of sublimated desire. When she stands exposed and alone in front of a mirror in the movie's already-much-discussed final shot , it feels less like a prurient shock than it should, maybe, to see the two-time Oscar winner this way: Imagine the small miracle of allowing a 62-year-old woman to gaze at her full, unadulterated self on screen, and like what she sees. Grade: B+

Follow EW's ongoing coverage out of Sundance here.

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Emma thompson in ‘good luck to you, leo grande’: film review | sundance 2022.

The actress stars as a repressed widow who hires a sex worker to help her discover what all the fuss over orgasms is about in director Sophie Hyde's comedy-drama.

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

Contributing Film Critic

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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Intimate in every sense, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande represents an affirming, immensely likable British comedy-drama. Admittedly, it’s more issue- than character-driven, like a hip advice-column story but with tracking shots. But that didacticism works given that it features Emma Thompson as a prim, widowed, high-school religious studies teacher who hires Daryl McCormack ‘s sex worker for a date, hoping to have an orgasm for the first time ever.

Naturally, the course of true pleasure n’er runs smooth, but along the way this lean, sensitively performed two-hander, written by British comedian Katy Brand and directed by Australian Sophie Hyde ( Animals , 52 Tuesdays ), builds up a refreshingly sex-positive portrait of a client-escort relationship, but with a female customer for a change. Although older female viewers would seem to be Leo ‘s obvious target, other demographics would also get into its groove. Theatrical returns might be modest, but online it will gush streams like a river in springtime.

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Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres) Cast: Daryl McCormack, Emma Thompson, Isabella Laughland Director: Sophie Hyde Screenwriter: Katy Brand

Although shot in a just-glimpsed Norwich, Norfolk, about a hundred miles from London, the town isn’t named and the story could be taking place in just about any hotel room in the U.K., or at least in any town big enough to have male escorts working discreetly in the area. In fact, the action is so confined to one location, you would almost think Brand had written this as a stage play originally. (Indeed, if this works as a film feature, maybe it will transition as a theater work someday.)

In a plush but anonymous hotel suite with a nice city view and a fully stocked mini bar, Dublin-accented escort Leo Grande (McCormack, from Peaky Blinders ) arrives to meet Nancy Stokes. (She is played by Thompson, who, although she’s always worked quite steadily, is having a bit of a moment lately on screen with meatier than usual roles, for example in Late Night or the superb six-part BBC/HBO series Years & Years .)

Nancy lost her husband two years ago, and he was the only man she’d ever had sex with. Now she wants some professional help to see if she can finally experience a real orgasm, having always faked it. Moreover, she’d like to try some other kinds of sex (oral, both giving and receiving, and then both at the same time) and positions (doggy?) that her late husband was never interested in attempting and she was too shy to insist on.

Silkily confident Leo — who not only has the frictionless bedside manner of a Harley Street therapist but is also clearly intelligent and educated judging by his use of words like “empirically” — isn’t fazed by the prospect of meeting all those requests. Nor, he insists, does he need any little blue pills to help him perform since he insists he finds Nancy very attractive.

Excessively critical of her own body — like so many women, especially post-menopausal women — she refuses to believe him. And yet over the course of several meetings weeks apart, Nancy comes to accept him at his word and learn to enjoy not only Leo’s body but her own as well.

Viewers who might assume that this is heading in the direction of a gender-flipped Pretty Woman are in for a refreshing surprise. No — spoiler alert! — Leo and Nancy are not going to fall in love, but they are going to develop a bond and an abiding respect for one another. Breaking down Nancy’s (and, by extension, the audience’s) assumptions, Leo (and, by extension, the filmmakers, who interviewed real-life sex workers for research) concedes that sex work can be dangerous and that there is a dark side to the profession. But like many of his colleagues, Leo honestly enjoys what he does, and takes pride in his well-honed skills. Not only is he good with people and deeply empathic, he’s able to find something beautiful and arousing in any client, even an 82-year-old woman he discreetly tells Nancy about.

Nevertheless, as with any professional therapist, he has strict boundaries, and Nancy finds herself violating them when she does a bit of internet stalking and works out Leo’s real name. (Both of them admit early on that they’re using pseudonyms.)  Furious, he leaves immediately but comes back only to look for his mislaid cellphone, giving Nancy a chance to apologize. Eventually, they trust each other enough to open up more, and Leo can explain why he’s estranged from his mother, who thinks he works on the North Sea oil rigs, while Nancy can rethink her own prejudices and past positions.

That the film has to work toward this kind of revelation in order to create a dramatic arc feels like a minor disservice to the professional relationship, one seldom explored honestly in film, that’s at the story’s core. One could imagine that the cast and filmmakers might have even considered going down a another route and showing Leo and Nancy having un-faked sex — a move not without precedent in arthouse film — although of course that would have made for a very different product.

Instead, every time Leo and Nancy finally finish talking and get down to business, the camera discreetly wanders away and leaves them to it. However, it’s clear from the subsequent dialogue how much these transactions have affected both of them, especially Nancy.

One crucial shot looks on as Nancy finally, finally ! has her first orgasm, and somehow Thompson manages to even flush red as if she’s not even acting. Minutes later she stands before a full length mirror, entirely naked and brightly lit enough to show every stretch mark and cellulite bump, and it’s possible she’s never looked sexier and more alluring in her whole career. Some viewers might find it a little hard to buy Thompson as a mousy, repressed schoolteacher in the film’s early reels, but by the end she’s so endearing she’s impossible to resist.

With his work cut out holding his own against such a force, McCormack holds his own very admirably. Indeed, the camera loves him, and the way director Hyde and her regular cinematographer-editor Bryan Mason film him, especially holding close on his always mobile and expressive face as he sits listening to Nancy, is a master class on how to shoot an actor in a way that captures their beauty but doesn’t objectify them. He may be the object of the title’s salutary sentence, but he’s definitely the joint subject of the film.

Full credits

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)

Cast: Daryl McCormack, Emma Thompson, Isabella Laughland

Production companies: Genesius Pictures, Cornerstone Films, Align, Paterson James

Director: Sophie Hyde

Screenwriter: Katy Brand Producers: Debbie Gray, Adrian Politowski Executive producers: Katy Brand, Sophie Hyde, Alison Thompson, Mark Gooder, Julian Gleek, Martin Metz, Nessa McGill, Nadia Khamlichi Director of photography: Bryan Mason Production designer: Miren Maranon Costume designer: Sian Jenkins Editor: Bryan Mason Sound designer: Steve Fannagan Music: Stephen Rennicks Music supervisor: Gary Welch Casting: Amy Hubbard Sales: Cornerstone Films

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‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’ Review: Emma Thompson Hires a Male Escort in Touching, Sex-Positive Two-Hander

David ehrlich.

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Searchlight Pictures releases the film on Hulu on Friday, June 17.

Former schoolteacher Nancy Stokes ( Emma Thompson ) is about as comfortable with her sexuality as she is with the aging body that has been forced to suppress it her entire life. So when this recent widow splurges a chunk of her savings on a night in a hotel with London’s finest male escort — hoping that he might introduce her to the elusive orgasm that her late husband never bothered to look for, and that she’s always been too ashamed to find on her own — a part of her is naturally repulsed by how well things turn out.

Not only is the young man who comes to her room “aesthetically perfect,” Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) is also clever, charming, and convincingly attracted to the post-menopausal prude who’s hired him for the evening. But what really gets under Nancy’s skin is that Leo seems to love his job. He isn’t dirty or desperate, nor is he doing sex work to put himself through school; on the contrary, he’s one of the most beautiful people who Nancy has ever seen in the flesh, he embraces his profession with the same ardor that he does his clients, and he articulates the virtues of giving pleasure with all the self-actualized calm of a wellness podcast.

Nancy expected a human dildo who could give her an orgasm off the assembly line in exchange for her pity — someone repugnant enough to justify a lifetime of bad sex (with the same man) and a career spent chiding her students about the length of their skirts. What she gets is a warm and well-adjusted stranger who is more responsive to her needs than even she has ever allowed herself to be. And Nancy can’t help but resent Leo for that. While his flawless skin and Abercrombie model physique are agonizing enough on their own, it’s his confidence and compassion that send her over the edge; every flicker of pleasure that Leo gives her leaves Nancy more upset that so much of her life has been surrendered to shame.

Possibly the sweetest fairy tale about a sex worker this side of “Pretty Woman” — if much less retrograde, never quite as broad, and ultimately far more interested in interrogating the strictures of its fantasy — “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” is a touching little two-hander that does right by its title character even if the lion’s share of the conflict in this audience-friendly charmer hinges on Nancy’s seesawing relationship with herself. Closed off one minute and yearning to be held the next, the film likewise teeters between the staccato iciness of Harold Pinter and the momcore joy of Nancy Meyers without fully surrendering to either one of them, a back-and-forth which produces its own kind of uneasy fun.

Of course, it’s all a bit hard to swallow at first. Not only is Leo enough of a people-pleasing dreamboat to make Jude Law’s Gigolo Joe seem like some Windows 95-era vaporware by comparison, but even Nancy is a shade too perfect in her self-deprecating nervousness. Unobtrusively directed by Sophie Hyde from a slim yet peppery script by Katy Brand (whose single-location piece was neither adapted from a play nor written with COVID restrictions in mind), “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” never feigns neo-realism, but its banter tiptoes along the fine line between breaking the ice and breaking the spell. “A very fine vintage,” Leo smirks after watching Nancy pour a glass of wine. “It’s just from the minibar,” she responds, before realizing that her new friend isn’t talking about the drink.

Leo is pure fantasy, Nancy is a splash of cold water to the face, and they balance each other out so well that even the most natural moments between them can’t help but feel schematic. As they get to know each other across four rendezvous in the same hotel room, their respective masks will slip off, their roles will start to blur, and the film around them will become more affecting as a result.

If the getting-to-know-you phase is less nuanced than the later parts when Nancy and Leo effectively start cosplaying a gender-reversed “Closer,” the film’s two lead actors (in a cast of four) game out a lifetime of mystery in every shot. Thompson is unsurprisingly excellent as a woman whose sexual disappointments betray a deeper self-denial. Her Nancy is funny even when she has one foot halfway out the door, and as compelled by Leo’s body as she is confused by the wisdom he brings to it; both the film and Thompson’s performance are at their best whenever Nancy, a retired educator who’s awed by all that this young man is able to teach her, still insists that she knows better than him (“Sometimes I wonder if what you young men need is a war,” she offers in response to Leo’s overdeveloped self-understanding).

For his part, Leo turns out to be more than just the mellow pectoral dream guy he plays on the job, but the loveliness of McCormack’s potentially star-making performance is that he never lets his character feel like he’s lying, even when he’s eliding the truth. Leo isn’t shy about indulging his client’s dreams, but that doesn’t mean their time together is somehow illegitimate. While his name might be fake (and the backstory it covers up a bit threadbare), the intimacy he’s there to provide is real as can be, and the movie around him is able to withstand its more fantastical impulses because it strives to make those fantasies real as well.

The average sex worker may never be as beautiful as McCormack — the average movie star may never be as beautiful as McCormack — but a world that allows for pleasure and encourages people to share it with each other doesn’t feel so far out of reach. The only thing standing in the way is our shame, and while that isn’t as neatly conquerable in real life as it is on screen, it’s still encouraging when a nice morsel of a movie like “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” proves totally unafraid of looking at itself in the mirror.

“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. 

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The long, oddly charming title of “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” is a line of dialogue spoken near the end of this not-too-long and thoroughly charming British comedy. Much earlier than that, however, you might find yourself expressing some version of the same sentiment. Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) is a sex worker in his 20s, and while he’s had many clients of varying persuasions and proclivities, he has never encountered one quite like Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson), the prim, anxious 55-year-old widow who’s booked him for a high-priced session. Leo will need more than luck to put nervous Nancy at ease; he’ll need every tool in his kit, the most impressive and dexterous of which may be his tongue.

No need to get your mind out of the gutter; this movie would prefer it stay there. And it knows that when it comes to sex, the tongue can be an instrument of both pleasure and persuasion. Leo has a way with words, a flair for language that endears him to Nancy, a retired high school teacher. And during most of the four separate appointments that make up Katy Brand’s script, Leo and Nancy are engaged in long bouts of verbal foreplay, sharing intimate secrets and navigating a raft of fears and insecurities (most but not all of them Nancy’s). You could say that Brand and director Sophie Hyde take their time getting to the good stuff, except that the talk is good stuff, full of erotic tension, playful humor and candid insight into the erogenous zones of the mind.

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“What’s your fantasy?” Leo asks Nancy during their first meeting in the comfortable-looking hotel room that serves as the film’s primary location. But Nancy, leaning hard on her experience as an educator (and also on Thompson’s skill at playing persnickety authority types), deals more in goals than fantasies. In one of the film’s funnier exchanges, she reads from a list of sex acts she wants to try out, like a waiter rattling off the nightly specials. You have to admire her directness. Having spent decades in a stable, unexciting, orgasm-free marriage, Nancy now wants to shed her inhibitions and satisfy her pent-up longings with a handsome, well-built young man like Leo.

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Still, those inhibitions persist, along with all the assumptions and prejudices that come with a socially conservative middle-class English background. (Nancy used to teach religious studies, a calling that seems not to have exactly tamed her libido.) Thompson, skilled at both effrontery and anxiety, mines that tension brilliantly. Nancy knows what she wants and is terrified by how badly she wants it, and she spends much of the early going trying to talk herself out of it, fretting about how much older she is than Leo and how repelled he must be by her sags and wrinkles. But Leo, waving this nonsense aside, reminds her that there’s nothing abnormal, let alone shameful, about expressing something so basic as desire.

“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” thus achieves both the intimacy of a chamber piece and the directness of a public service announcement, one aimed at promoting sex/body positivity and debunking retrograde attitudes about women’s pleasure and the nature of sex work. If that makes it sound stagy and even didactic — you could certainly imagine it working well as a play — well, the message is a worthy one, and all PSAs should be this pleasurable. At times you can see the gears of Brand’s script grinding away, the carefully engineered pivots from one point or revelation to the next. (The fourth act, in particular, leaves no point unaddressed.) But Hyde stages it all with an unfussy elegance that serves the material, and any lingering creakiness is dispelled by Thompson and McCormack, who always seem to be playing people rather than ideological mouthpieces.

Their dialogue builds up a suitably erotic rhythm; it’s all about give and take, back and forth, the satisfaction of curiosity, the delineation and occasional transgression of boundaries. Nancy, projecting her own moral reservations onto Leo, sometimes goes too far in interrogating him about his profession. Doesn’t he ever feel degraded? And if not, then why does he employ a false identity (Leo Grande, surprise surprise, isn’t his real name) and hide the truth about his work from his family? There’s some honesty in the movie’s acknowledgment that even transactional sex is never the simple, no-strings-attached affair its participants might like to think. Nancy, having shared at length about her dull job, duller marriage and disappointing kids, understandably wants to know more about the man she’s paying to sleep with.

A smiling man and woman

We want to know more about Leo, too, and McCormack, an Irish actor known for his work on “Peaky Blinders,” suggests just the right levels of depth and mystery beneath the cute face and chiseled physique. But we want to know Nancy even more, and Thompson’s performance more than satisfies that curiosity. This is hardly the first time she’s had passionate onscreen sex (who could forget the exploding milk carton in “The Tall Guy” ?). Nor is it the first time she’s played a role conceived in opposition to the ageist, sexist status quo, as she did in the 2019 comedy “Late Night.” Still, she has seldom worn her intent as clearly as she does in what is already “Leo Grande’s” most talked-about scene, one that beautifully dismantles every film-industry assumption about which bodies, especially women’s bodies, warrant the camera’s attention.

Mainstream movies, as Thompson, Hyde, Brand and their collaborators know, have done more than their part to keep women in their place, treating the complexities of human sexuality as grounds for sniggering humor at best and censorship at worst. “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” presents itself as a corrective, with an earnestness that verges on the Utopian; for all its low-key intimacy and emotional realism, this movie knows it’s selling a fantasy of its own. But it’s hard not to warm to that fantasy, or to embrace its still-rare vision of a woman learning to articulate and satisfy her most human impulses. It’s good for Nancy. And for us.

‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’

Rating: R, for sexual content, graphic nudity and some language Running time : 1 hour, 37 minutes Playing: Available June 17 on Hulu

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Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in criticism for work published in 2023. Chang is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

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'Good Luck to You, Leo Grande' review: Respect, consent, and boundaries come first

A man and woman in their underwear sit in a hotel bed with the covers pulled up, looking at the camera.

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"It’s an orgasm, not a Fabergé egg. People have them every day."

Katy Brand's spectacularly sharp script for Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is full of witticisms like this, with every moment fueled by smart discussion of sex , sex work, how important consent and respecting boundaries are to mutual pleasure , and of thinking beyond your own experience.

Directed by Sophie Hyde, this wholly sex-positive film is itself as unpredictable in its subtleties as it is powerful in its exploration of compassion, body image, ageism, and outdated social ideas about pleasure. Emma Thompson is characteristically brilliant as Nancy Stokes, a sexually repressed former teacher with naught but a skerrick of self-confidence, who, two years since her husband died, decides to hire sex worker Leo Grande, played by staggeringly talented newcomer Daryl McCormack. We're not told what immediately preceded this decision, but Thompson brings an anxiously self-interrogating energy to Nancy, who's never really thought about her own pleasure or needs — it’s clear her only sexual relationship was devoid of any value for Nancy's desires. 

McCormack is utterly compelling as the titular Leo Grande, whose self-confidence, compassion, and pride — both in himself and his work — comes through the very first moment he steps through Nancy’s hotel room door. McCormack takes Brand's script and weaves from it a truly charismatic character whose ability to alleviate tension with empathetic finesse is truly exceptional. Leo's emotional intelligence enables him to see that Nancy, full of judgement and inhibition, views herself solely from the outside — a revelation that plays out in several mirror-facing scenes.

Set over four meetings, the film feels more like a play, contained almost entirely to the walls of the hotel room at The Duffield, yet moving through nuanced stages of each character’s development so seamlessly that an hour and 37 minutes doesn't feel it at all.

A man in a white shirt and briefs kneels on a bed next to a woman in a short nightgown and silk robe.

The film champions mutual pleasure as one of the most important elements of sex, making sure each person's needs are heard, understood, respected, and explored. Nancy has never had an orgasm. Not one. It's something she's never prioritised for herself, nor did her late husband. It's also something she actually doesn’t think possible, which is unsurprising, as her one sexual partner seemingly had no interest in asking Nancy what she enjoyed. Thompson plays through this with expert care, having Nancy act out the typical stages of their passionless sexual interactions like clockwork (fake orgasm included) and laugh off what Mashable features editor and Rough author Rachel Thompson might call "unwanted sex " as an acceptable experience. Nancy describes her sex life as having had "no deviation for 31 years."

As a result, Nancy's fantasies and desires, which rarely extend beyond "getting it over with," are as limited as her own sex education . What's more, her feelings of shame over asking for what she wants are apparent throughout the whole film. In perfectly deadpan delivery from Thompson, Nancy literally makes a list of "attainment goals," or rather, sex positions she’d like to "get through" in a couple of hours, popping on her reading glasses and frankly announcing each one to a bemused Leo. It's in moments like this that Brand's script is exceptionally funny, amplifying an awkward mixture of Nancy's keep-calm-and-carry-on attitude with the discomfort around her own desires.

A man and woman dance together smiling.

The importance of ongoing consent lies at the core of Leo Grande as a truly intimate, deliberate theme. The film does not miss a beat here, with Leo leading by example by taking physical, verbal, and energetic cues from Nancy, asking for consent for every single intimate action, from simply kissing Nancy on the cheek to dancing to an Alabama Shakes song as a means to shake off Nancy’s inhibitions. Leo's expertise in empathetic mood adjustment is refreshingly comforting to watch — and should serve as a tutorial for the audience, to be honest. Nancy also continually asks for consent for physical connection, however she fails to do this for his personal boundaries. 

It’s here the film makes clear the power of setting boundaries , and the feeling of powerlessness and frustration that comes from having yours disrespected or crossed. Leo communicates his clearly, as does Nancy, however, she crosses his boundaries more than once, persistently coaxing personal information from him and ultimately leaping past one of Leo's most valued parameters: the separation of his professional and personal life, and protection of his identity as a sex worker. This breach of trust leads to a truly spectacular and devastating monologue from McCormack.

A man and woman in their underwear look into a mirror.

As such, Nancy's sexual awakening is not her only journey, as she also opens up to self-love through debates about body image and age with Leo. Nancy's lack of self-confidence and contempt for her body comes from a deep, socially ingrained, patriarchal place — one Thompson expertly peppers throughout her performance, moving toward a wonderful moment of body neutrality for the character.

However, Nancy is initially steadfast in her views, having quite the tendency to lean toward misogynist rhetoric blaming young women’s attire for sexual harassment and openly spewing a sort of conservative moral panic about sex work to Leo's face. She constantly asks what his family thinks about his work and how he feels about it himself, specifically whether he feels "degraded" by it. Nancy tells Leo she quite literally used to set her students' "essays on the moral issues surrounding sex work, and here I am participating in it."

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Without being a PowerPoint presentation advocating the full decriminalisation of sex work , the film fosters ample discussion of the profession, with Leo expertly navigating Nancy's judgmental, pre-conceived notions of the sex industry and the experiences of sex workers . Leo patiently, even playfully, deflects her barrage of insensitive questions with a wry smile, telling her, "There’s nothing crass about getting paid for your work."

In these discussions, which are some of the film’s most important, Leo makes clear to Nancy, more than once, that "You haven’t bought me. You've bought my services. I set a price and you agreed. I'm not being exploited." He doesn't avoid speaking to sex worker safety, but explains how he values his work deeply as a public service that meets people’s emotional and physical needs. "Think how civilised it could be," he says. Here, Thompson allows Nancy to truly listen and address her own bias, but also realistically limits this as, later, Nancy emotionally wounds Leo in a moment of blatant disrespect for his dignity that signals an unambiguous point of no return.

By foregrounding themes of desire and mutual pleasure with that of ongoing consent and acknowledgment of boundaries, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande spotlights the importance of simultaneously respecting yourself and others when it comes to sex. Under Hyde's intimate direction, Thompson and McCormack take Brand's script and work with it to create a truly nuanced and playful exploration of wants, needs, and compassion. Good luck to it.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is now in cinemas and streaming on Hulu.

Topics Hulu

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Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House . A Tomatometer-approved critic , Shannon writes about everything (but not anything) across entertainment, tech, social good, science, and culture.

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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Review

A beautifully honest look at intimacy..

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Review - IGN Image

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande debuts on Hulu on June 17, 2022.

In Sophie Hyde’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Dame Emma Thompson is in her most candid role as Nancy, a former schoolteacher and widow who has lived a boring and basic lifestyle – she has never even had an orgasm. In an effort to reclaim her sexuality, she hires a young, handsome sex worker, Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack), to fulfil her every sexual fantasy. Though that premise seems superficial on the surface, what unfolds is a far cry from 50 Shades of Grey, beautifully peeling back the layers between two very different people exposing their emotional baggage, vulnerabilities, and personal trauma.

With the set simply consisting of the interior of one hotel room, the majority of the film’s success depends on the chemistry and conversations between the two main characters. Fortunately, Thompson and McCormack’s chemistry is efficacious as the cool and collected Leo attempts to pacify a flustered and repressed Nancy, who is still struggling with the idea of hiring a sex worker to begin with. Screenwriter Katy Brand keeps the conversations intriguing and as raw as possible. Thompson doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to Nancy’s resentment of the life she’s lived – one filled with obligation, but never satisfaction. McCormack portrays the fantasy of Leo perfectly, but leaves tiny cracks of a real damaged person behind the sexy smile and oozing charisma.

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Although Nancy initially comes off as judgemental, we learn it’s only because she is a product of her generation, where sexual desires, especially those of women, were inhibited. Leo, meanwhile, represents the current generation where sexuality is more open, fluid, and lesst defined by labels, including attitudes towards sex work. Their attempts to connect and empathize with each other’s different views allows for great dialogue. When Nancy questions hiring Leo throughout their first meeting because of her perceptions of sex work, it gives him the chance to alleviate her anxieties by explaining that it’s a simple business transaction and that he feels no shame at what he does.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a delightful story of two strangers finding a connection and celebrating their differences. Their relationship feels so natural and, quite honestly, refreshing. The topic of the female orgasm, sexual pleasure, and self-love is rarely talked about in mainstream films without it resorting to some raunchy rom-com where it is seen as a joke. Instead, the subject is explored here through the lens of a woman who struggled with self-acceptance of her sexuality, wants, and desires – and finally feeling herself after all these years. In a time when society has made women’s bodies into a thing of politics, shying away from the discussion of sex, it’s enlightening to watch a film that embraces it and beautifully portrays what it means to finally love yourself.

What's the best Emma Thompson movie?

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a heartfelt dramedy about a middle-aged woman and the sex worker she hires and their candid conversations about life, shame, and acceptance. Director Sophie Hyde and writer Katy Brand beautifully explore aging women’s desires and needs and what it means to finally love yourself. Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack’s chemistry is intense and each give brilliant performances.

In This Article

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

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Sex, nudity, and empathy in profound, intimate drama.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Movie Poster

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The film celebrates human bodies and has an empowe

Nancy is very real, flawed, and insecure, yet she

The two leads are a middle-aged woman with agency

The characters discuss war and weaponry, and one h

The entire film is about sex. Conversations are gr

Occasional use of "f--k," as well as "a--hole" and

Both characters drink from the mini-bar at the hot

Parents need to know that Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a two-character drama starring Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack that tackles themes and subjects often considered taboo -- namely, that desire and pleasure are never anything to feel ashamed about. The film is a real celebration of self-confidence and…

Positive Messages

The film celebrates human bodies and has an empowering undercurrent that encourages people to be happy and confident in their own skin. It also explores the notion that age is just a number, and that we're never too old to have desires and want to be pleasured -- and we shouldn't feel ashamed of it.

Positive Role Models

Nancy is very real, flawed, and insecure, yet she knows what she wants and deserves: to be loved and touched. She's frank on subjects rarely dealt with in cinema but very relatable to many -- i.e. having been in a sexually suppressive relationship and regretting motherhood. Leo is an escort, and is empowered by his life choice to be a sex worker, not exploited. He creates a safe space for his clients and doesn't judge them. As they get to know each other, they demonstrate communication and develop empathy for each other.

Diverse Representations

The two leads are a middle-aged woman with agency and a man of color (Irish actor Daryl McCormack has a White mother and a Black father). The film was written and directed by women. The movie explores nuanced and profound issues that many women experience as they age yet rarely see reflected back to them on screen.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

The characters discuss war and weaponry, and one has an emotional outburst that's slightly intimidating, but he takes it out on the hotel furniture.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

The entire film is about sex. Conversations are graphic, discussing intercourse and all the different subjects that surround it, including orgasms, threesomes, erections, and anal sex. There's a graphic sex montage in which the two characters try many different positions. They both climax, him during intercourse, and her via masturbation. Leo is seen naked from behind, with a brief glimpse of his penis as he turns around. There's a long full-frontal shot of Nancy standing in the mirror as she looks over her body. Sex work is discussed at length.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Occasional use of "f--k," as well as "a--hole" and ‘"p---y." Derogatory words such as "whore" and "slut" are used.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Both characters drink from the mini-bar at the hotel. It seems that they use alcohol as a means to steady their nerves. They drink sparkling wine to celebrate.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a two-character drama starring Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack that tackles themes and subjects often considered taboo -- namely, that desire and pleasure are never anything to feel ashamed about. The film is a real celebration of self-confidence and the importance of loving your body, no matter its perceived flaws. The topic and act of sex take center stage, with brief full male nudity and more lingering female nudity. An extended, graphic sex montage includes moaning/orgasm and shows many different positions. There's also simulated masturbation and oral sex. The characters have many frank conversations about sex and sex work (both believe the latter should be legalized). The two characters are vulnerable, insecure, and learn a lot from each other, despite being very different. Language includes "f--k," "whore," and "slut," and the characters drink alcohol together. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 3 parent reviews

What's the Story?

GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE follows Nancy Stokes ( Emma Thompson ), a widowed teacher/mother who had a very unsatisfying sex life with her late husband and decides that she wants to explore her sexuality and try something new. So she hires a handsome young escort named Leo Grande Daryl McCormack ). But what transpires isn't just a quick fling; rather, it's a connection between two people who have a lot to get off their chests.

Is It Any Good?

This drama was undoubtedly very inexpensive to make, but it's incredibly rich in the themes and messages it seeks to convey. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande feels play-like in its simple, single setting and two-character structure. While that could be an issue in other films, here it matters little, if at all, thanks to wonderful character development and strikingly impressive performances. Thompson gives one of the finest of her career: Nancy is a remarkable character, diving headfirst into themes and conversation points seldom seen in mainstream films (credit to writer Katy Brand for tackling it all, too!).

While the lead characters are certainly insecure, their gradual ability to learn to love themselves, who they are, and what they look like, is infectious, giving the movie an ultimately uplifting feel. And McCormack must be commended for going toe-to-toe with a legendary performer like Thompson and coming out with his head held high. Don't be surprised if you end up liking these two characters so much as the film progresses that you sort of hope they might meet up for another date soon, if only so we can enter their world one more time.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how Good Luck to You, Leo Grande encourages viewers to learn to love themselves and their bodies. Is that something you've ever felt insecure about? Did watching this film help?

It's very rare to see female sexuality, particularly for women over 60, explored in mainstream cinema. Why do you think that is?

The movie's sex scenes and discussions about sex are quite graphic. How do you feel about having open, free dialogue about sex?

Characters debate topics related to sex work, including whether it should be legalized. What are your opinions on the subject?

How does Nancy and Leo's relationship show the importance of both communication and empathy ?

Movie Details

  • On DVD or streaming : June 17, 2022
  • Cast : Emma Thompson , Daryl McCormack
  • Director : Sophie Hyde
  • Inclusion Information : Female directors, Black actors
  • Studio : Searchlight Pictures
  • Genre : Drama
  • Character Strengths : Communication , Empathy
  • Run time : 97 minutes
  • MPAA rating : R
  • MPAA explanation : sexual content, graphic nudity and some language
  • Last updated : March 15, 2023

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Good Luck To You, Leo Grande Review: Emma Thompson Is Magnetic In This Intimate Drama [Sundance 2022]

Daryl McCormack and Emma Thompson in bed

Everyone knows Emma Thompson is an international treasure. What "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" presupposes is: Maybe she's even better than everyone already thought? 

Thompson, a multihyphenate and two-time Oscar winner, delivers arguably the best performance of her career in director Sophie Hyde's tender drama, while up-and-comer Daryl McCormack ("The Wheel of Time," "Peaky Blinders") is also spectacular as the title character, Leo Grande. Movies like this don't come around every day, and you're not going to want to miss this one.

Nancy (Thompson) is nervous. The widow and retired teacher has spent her entire life doing everything exactly by the book, but all that ends today. She's done something totally out of character: hired a handsome young sex worker to give her the sexual experiences she's always wanted, but never had. When charming twentysomething Leo Grande (McCormack) arrives in her hotel room, Nancy is more flustered than a convention hall full of Hugh Grant impersonators. His calm confidence and laid-back demeanor are in direct contrast to her skittish second thoughts, and as their conversation flows, the characters peel back each others' layers and expose vulnerabilities, histories, and unexpected wounds.

Female Pleasure – What a Concept!

Sundance logo

A majority of the movie consists of two people simply talking in a single room, but thanks to Katy Brand's superb script, those conversations are as riveting as anything else I've seen on screen over the past year. Thompson and McCormack crackle together on screen; she infuses this repressed woman with both gravitas and humor, while he manages to simultaneously feel like the coolest guy in the world and one who's using that slick exterior to hide tremendous personal pain. The drama is so authentic and naturalistic that it feels like you're actually in the room with Nancy and Leo, resulting in a wholly immersive experience – one that's so purely compelling, you can sometimes forget you're watching a movie.

Part of the immersion stems from the novelty of the premise. It shouldn't still feel like a radical act in 2022 for a movie to center on the idea of female pleasure, but because that topic is ludicrously under-explored (in English-language films, anyway), there's an extra level of curiosity to seeing how it's tackled here. That's a huge part of this movie, and it's important and meaningful to see that type of sex positivity on screen in a culture which typically shies away from any frank discussion about sex. But the movie is also concerned with the shame women can feel about their own bodies after struggling to keep from drowning amid unrealistic beauty standards and being bombarded by relentless images of "perfection" to which they can't measure up. The discomfort that flickers across Nancy's face is due to a lifetime of disappointment with herself, and at its core, "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" is about staring that disappointment in the face and making the uncomfortable choice to barrel through it to find out what lies on the other side.

In a post-movie Q&A, Brand mentioned she was originally considering writing this as a play before she decided it would be a film. But thanks to Hyde's exceptional direction, this movie never feels as if someone has just set up a camera in front of a stage. Instead, the camera is always dancing with these characters, whispering across their bodies and getting close enough to see every barrier drop behind their eyes as they learn more about each other, culminating in an unforgettable final moment (one Thompson described in the Q&A as being the most challenging of her entire career).

"Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" is a spellbinding piece of filmmaking, an acting masterclass, a celebration of the written word, and a powerful cinematic plea for self-acceptance and self-love.

/Film Rating : 10 out of 10

Culture | Film

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande review: Emma Thompson takes this post-menopausal tale in hand

movie review good luck to you leo grande

Emma Thompson and rising star Daryl McCormack are sublime in this graphic, bound-to-be-controversial British dramedy about a middle-aged, English widow whose life is transformed by a twentysomething Irish prostitute. The film may be as dodgy as it is ground-breaking, but the chemistry between the two actors is undeniably grand.

Mother-of-two, Nancy (Thompson), is a privileged and often patronising pedagogue. She’s spent most of her adult life teaching RE to recalcitrant teens. Now she wants to educate herself, re lust. In an anonymous hotel room, she hands gigolo Leo (McCormack), a list of “goals”, that include giving him a blow job and doing it doggy style.

Having an orgasm is not on the list. Nancy, you see, is a pessimist/realist. She says that she faked orgasms with her husband and performs her phoney moan, to hilarious effect (it’s a time-saving variation on the one in When Harry Met Sally). The charming Leo, who at first seems unflappable, thinks he can satisfy Nancy. Is he right?

Nancy feels like a spiritual cousin to Olivia Colman’s character in The Lost Daughter. Both Nancy and Leda are intellectuals, flummoxed by the demands of motherhood, whose caustic wit can give way on a dime to spite and snobbery. If you like flawed and funny heroines, you’re in luck. That said, Leda and Nancy take a very different approach to sexual healing. Where Leda only flirts with the idea of flirting with a man half her age, Nancy goes the whole way.

In the second half of the movie, Thompson’s body is very much in our face. Like Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown, the 62 year old actress has firmly refused to deny the ageing process, and gives us her all. And of course, Thompson is actually super-sexy, not because she’s been lit to look younger than she is (the lighting is sometimes soft, sometimes harsh). She’s a sight for sore eyes because, when she throws back her head and laughs, she makes you believe that everyone and anyone who likes themselves is hot.

In separate scenes, Nancy and Leo survey themselves in the hotel mirror. No words are spoken but, on both occasions, the effect is deeply moving.

The script, written by comedian Katy Brand, isn’t always so deft. After several twists (some intriguing, some histrionic), Nancy gets a speech in which she suggests all post-menopausal women, in order to avoid “crinkling up” with frustration, should have a few sessions with someone like Leo. She’s essentially saying, ‘You’re as young as (the young sex worker) you feel.” That’s not feminism, that’s ageist piffle designed to reel in audiences who think Magic Mike shows are cutting edge.

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande was filmed in Norfolk last March, while England was still in lockdown, which partially explains why almost everything happens in just two settings (the aforementioned hotel and a restaurant with all the buzz of a particularly dismal graveyard).

The movie only works when the camera is honed on Thompson and McCormack. Leo looks at Nancy and says, “Thank you for coming.” The big question: will women come in their droves, when this film finally hits the UK?

97mins, cert tbc

In cinemas June 17

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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande review: Emma Thompson dramedy is a refreshing bedroom romp

Emma thompsons' good luck to you, leo grande is a tender story about connections and being compassionate to yourself..

Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

What to Watch Verdict

Thompson and McCormack are an unexpectedly charismatic duo in this refreshing take on a midlife crisis.

Thompson and McCormack both give moving performances

McCormack is a touch too underdeveloped

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a dramedy shot during the pandemic that demonstrates, with the right actors and the right story to tell, you don’t need much more than a stylish hotel room to make magic. 

Written by Katy Brand and directed by Sophie Hyde, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a chamber play about Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) a 55-year-old widow who hires Leo Grande ( Peaky Blinders ’ Daryl McCormack), a stunningly attractive sex-worker, to explore her sexuality. Nancy’s had one sex partner, her deceased husband. Their bedplay was neither good nor fulfilling. She longs to be touched and have the kinds of sexual adventures she’s heard about but never experienced; even though she’s given up on ever achieving orgasm. 

But Nancy is a high-strung, former ethics teacher who can barely settle her nerves enough to talk to the man her internet search led her to booking for the afternoon. Leo Grande enters with a calm sensuality and woos Nancy slowly, turning this unlikely rendezvous into an appealing series of meet-ups full of witty repartee, uncomfortable truths and sexual delight.  

Don’t expect this duo to play coy about why they’ve come to this hotel room. Nancy may be bound up in patriarchal strings but she’s far from shy and retiring. And Leo is a sophisticated operator far too careful to ever play the coquettish boy toy. As Leo slowly coaxes Nancy into engaging with him, their awkward hellos and polite conversation morph into a meeting of the minds and ultimately the body. Just as you think this pair is settling into a steady arrangement, in her glee and arrogance, Nancy oversteps and blows up her cozy new arrangement. 

What follows is a masterful exchange full of restrained fury and brittle vulnerability from both McCormack and Thompson. Every sigh, twitch of the eye, bodily flinch and outstretched hand fraught with meaning. Neither overshadowing the other but instead working as equals to fill the space even when they fall silent. But those final revelations between the two leave them standing on opposite sides of a seemingly insurmountable breach. 

Thompson is a wonder as a woman slowly unbound. Her portrayal offers a glimpse at what it takes to learn to be honest with yourself and accept your part in how life’s disappointed you. McCormack plays a sex worker who’s carefully crafted image and persona are everything to him with compelling openness and striking sensuality. Their conversation is at turns an insightful take on sex work and a biting commentary on marital dissatisfaction, social restraint, parental disappointment and dreams not pursued.

Nancy undergoes a metamorphosis over the course of their engagements. The woman who emerges is a warmer, more relaxed Nancy learning to embrace her wants, needs and desires. A woman willing to own her mistakes.

With a deft hand and tight direction, Hyde directs Leo Grande using the judgments people make about sex workers and unspoken entitlement of those able to pay for their time to weave together a brilliant lesson on boundaries — the dangers of having too many as well as the consequences of breaching them without permission.

Thompson and McCormick carry the day with a chemistry that grows out of the same awkwardness that fuels the film’s best comedic and most tender moments. With a third act rife with emotion and a decidedly satisfying commentary on female pleasure, this story about connection, acceptance and transformation offers far more than a mere May-December sex romp.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is now playing in UK theaters and streaming exclusively on Hulu in the US.

Ro is a Rotten Tomatoes approved film/tv critic, writer and host on several of the MTR Network's podcasts. She's a member of the San Diego Film Critics Society and the Online Association of Female Film Critics. She's a former culture columnist for San Diego CityBeat (may it rest in peace) with a serious addiction to genre fiction, horror and documentaries. You can find her sharing movie and book recs and random thoughts, on her podcast I Talk Sh!t and Read or in her newsletter, Shelf Envy.

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movie review good luck to you leo grande

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande Review

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande

17 Jun 2022

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande

There is no shortage of sexual awakening stories centred on young ladies’ experience of the big O for the first time. Unfortunately, far too many women go through life without climaxing at all — and this is where comedian and screenwriter Katy Brand has stepped in to fill that orgasm gap. With Sophie Hyde on directing duties, this is an endearing, bubbly and heartening two-hander about female pleasure from a mature woman’s perspective. Together with Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack, Brand and Hyde have captured that particularly dry style of humour and matter-of-factness so typical of the British romcom, with a sex-positive flair.

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande

Thompson gives us everything. An award-winning screenwriter herself, it’s abundantly clear the actor has invested both personally and creatively in her repressed ex-schoolteacher. Nancy is a flood of contradictions: vulnerable and assertive, liberally minded but sexually conservative, straight-talking yet easily embarrassed by phrases like “anal sex”. She might be the older woman, but early on Thompson plays her almost like a 16-year-old about to pop her cherry, wide-eyed insecurity and nervous energy vibrating off her body. Like Aubrey Plaza ’s feminist teen lead in The To Do List , she has a catalogue of carnal pleasures to experience for the first time, and Leo is the man to do just that.

Brand's script takes great care to dissect the ambiguities around sex and sex work without shame.

A calming foil to his tightly wound client, McCormack serves as a charismatic receptacle to Thompson’s anxious stream-of-consciousness, as well as a mirror to her more generational, mother-knows-best prejudices. Even as you empathise with the chaotic way Nancy unpacks her fears and sexual desires, the patient mask Leo wears rarely slips; it’s only her questions about his life, aspirations and reasons for being in his profession that cause his poise to falter. The underlying tension doesn’t quite rip but ripples as McCormark’s placid demeanour shifts, forcing a deeper interrogation for them both.

A Norwich hotel room sets the stage for this tête-à-tête; its beige decor of muted colours doesn’t pull focus and dulls any erotic charge. 
It’s not without its sensuality — at moments, the camera luxuriates in both their bodies — but naturalistic lighting grounds the encounter in the awkward, transactional reality. Navigating the power dynamic between client and sex worker, older white woman and young biracial man, Brand might have probed a bit deeper instead of tying up things so neatly. But in avoiding racial clichés and exploitative moments, her script takes great care to dissect the ambiguities around sex and sex work without shame, a lot of compassion and welcome comic relief. With bold direction, this is a healthy, relatable romp every man and woman should make time for.

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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande review: A pleasant but lackluster two-hander

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is not a film about girl meets boy, but rather, girl hires boy. The new film from director Sophie Hyde and writer Katy Brand depicts several pivotal, turbulent meetings between a middle-aged woman (played by Emma Thompson) and a young, attractive male escort (played by Daryl McCormack). Its structure and contained setting — nearly all of the film takes place in one hotel room — gives Good Luck to You, Leo Grande the pace and scope of a stage play.

A midlife adventure

Difficult barriers, the power of pleasure.

In fact, the film’s script lends itself to the stage so well that it’s nearly impossible not to be reminded of the theater while watching Good Luck to You, Leo Grande . That’s both a good and bad thing. On the one hand, its limited scope allows Good Luck to You, Leo Grande to feel claustrophobic in a way that helps elevate some of its more dramatic moments and makes it easier to become engrossed in the conversations between its two leads. On the other hand, the film never manages to achieve the same level of intimacy that a stage production of Brand’s script might have, which lessens the impact of its more sensual moments.

Consequently, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande ends up being a surprisingly uneven film. As a compelling, if overly didactic, film about the importance of maintaining a healthy sex life, the movie more or less succeeds. However, as an erotic two-hander about the pleasure of sex, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande comes up disappointingly short.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande follows Nancy Stokes (Thompson), a widow who decides to hire a male escort in the hope of experiencing the kind of romantic and sexual pleasure that she was denied throughout her marriage. But when Leo Grande, the escort in question, first meets Nancy, she’s a bundle of nerves and insecurities. She’s unsure of herself and is constantly grappling with the questions bouncing around in her mind about the moral implications of hiring an escort.

For his part, Leo takes all of Nancy’s concerns in stride, assuring her of not only her attractiveness but also the joy he gets out of being a sex worker. His compliments and assurances predictably bounce off of Nancy’s many emotional and physical barriers, which means that their four meetings together turn into long, winding conversations with brief bursts of sexual activity scattered throughout, rather than the other way around.

Katy Brand’s script, for the most part, ensures that Good Luck to You, Leo Grande moves at a fairly rapid pace over the course of its 97-minute runtime. The script’s episodic structure does result in the film coming dangerously close to feeling repetitive around its midpoint, but Brand wisely shifts the dynamic and mood of Leo and Nancy’s relationship shortly after that feeling sets in. While the movie’s more contentious moments do feel contrived at points as well, its greatest pleasures can be found in the instances when Leo and Nancy each open up and, in the process of doing so, allow themselves to be swayed by the other’s presence.

Those moments, in particular, are elevated by the easy, natural chemistry that Thompson and McCormack have on-screen together. While Nancy and Leo take a while to become comfortable around one other, Thompson and McCormack seem like a natural screen pair from the moment they first cross paths in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande . Thompson has long been one of the entertainment industry’s most versatile performers, and she brings her usual shades of wit, intelligence, and vulnerability to Nancy, a character who might have become far too grating in a lesser actor’s hands.

That said, it’s ultimately McCormack who lifts up Good Luck to You, Leo Grande . He brings a soft, warm sensuality to his performance as Leo, an escort who has become adept at understanding and catering to his clients’ requests. Many of the film’s best moments come when McCormack is left to either ponder his own thoughts or, as he does several times throughout the movie, silently note the shifts in Nancy’s moods so that he can respond in ways that make her more comfortable.

One dance sequence, in particular, leaves a lasting impression solely because of how well it highlights McCormack’s smooth, fluid physical performance. If Good Luck to You, Leo Grande ends up making any kind of a lasting impact among audiences, it’ll likely be because of how resoundingly it announces McCormack as an up-and-coming performer to watch out for.

Together, McCormack and Thompson bring enough heart and charm to Good Luck to You, Leo Grande to make its story feel worthwhile. They manage to do that in spite of Hyde and Brand’s various unnecessary attempts at injecting more conflict into Nancy and Leo’s relationship — a decision that nearly derails the entire film. Fortunately, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande  manages to recover from its missteps in its last act.

That said, the film does make the mistake of repeatedly verbalizing its themes. While understandable, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande would likely have been better off leaving its moral lessons and messages unspoken. The film’s story is strong enough to communicate its ideas without needing to say them out loud. In fact, while the film does include a lengthy third-act speech from Thompson’s Nancy about the importance of sexual positivity, it’s not nearly as effective as the moment in which Leo and Nancy first truly connect.

The scene in question, which comes near the end of the film’s first act, sees Nancy recall a moment of missed connection from her past. McCormack’s Leo watches her face closely while she speaks, noticing the tears brimming in her eyes before they fall, and his response is not only a clear sign of understanding and care but also a powerful reminder of how important sexual fulfillment is to a person’s life. Even more importantly, it’s a moment of connection and revelation that doesn’t require that any words be spoken out loud, which makes it stand out even more in a film that’s as dialogue-driven as Good Luck to You, Leo Grande .

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande premieres Friday, June 17 on Hulu .

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Few directors have had more divisive careers than M. Night Shyamalan. After bursting onto the scene with a movie that everyone sees as a classic (even though it is not his first film), Shyamalan showed immense promise, but many thought that promise went largely unrealized.

Thankfully, Shyamalan didn't give up after his failures, and now he's back with Trap, a movie that has proven just as divisive as Shyamalan's career as a whole. The movie, which follows a serial killer who has discovered that he's fallen into a trap laid for him by authorities, has earned praise and critiques in almost equal measure. Here are four reasons you should definitely check it out. M. Night Shyamalan remains a master stylist Trap | Official Trailer 2

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The first footage from The Last of Us features Pedro Pascal's Joel speaking with Catherine O' Hara's mysterious character, who asks if he hurt Bella Ramsey's Ellie. "I saved her," Joel tearfully replies. The teaser features glimpses of several new additions to the season 2 cast, including Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Isabela Merced as Dina, and Jeffrey Wright as Isaac. The Last of Us season 2 premieres in 2025.

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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande : a review

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Good Luck To You Leo Grande

1 hr 33 min

Nancy Stokes, a retired school teacher seeking romance and adventure, hires Leo Grande, a young sex worker. Can Nancy take charge of her sexual life following three decades of unsatisfying marital relationships with the same man?

Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack, Isabella Laughland

Screen Rant

Casting xaden riorson for the fourth wing tv show: 14 actors perfect for the role.

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Fourth Wing's Hardest Role To Cast Isn't The Character You Think

The court of thorns & roses & fourth wing tv shows better be paying attention to outlander, 10 fourth wing book moments we must see in the amazon show.

Warning: This list contains spoilers for Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing.

  • Xaden Riorson's casting for Fourth Wing is crucial due to him being a key ally in a secret revolution.
  • Actors like Dev Patel, Regé-Jean Page, and Michael B. Jordan could bring depth to Xaden's character.
  • Avan Jogia and Evan Evagora are also strong contenders for the role of Xaden.

Casting Xaden Riorson well will be vital to Amazon’s Fourth Wing TV show. Fourth Wing , based on Rebecca Yarros’ book of the same name and its sequel Iron Flame (with more books to come), follows scribe-turned-dragon rider Violet Sorrengail. After her mother forces her into the brutal training of the Riders Quadrant, Xaden becomes a key ally to Violet in her fight for survival. As Xaden and Violet grow closer and become romantic partners, Violet discovers that Xaden is the leader of a secret revolution that is preparing to battle a supernatural force that their country has hidden for generations.

Casting Violet Sorrengail for the Fourth Wing TV show is important, but finding the perfect person to portray her partner in crime is just as significant a task. Besides having the brooding allure typical of young adult and new adult love interests, Xaden Riorson carries a heavy responsibility of protecting the ostracized children of the people who followed his father in a failed previous rebellion. He cuts a mysterious figure as someone who is always keeping secrets. The actor playing Riorson will need to show this with little dialogue, and some surprising possibilities represent the untapped potential to do so.

This custom image shows the Fourth Wing book cover next to each other three times with lightning in between.

Though Violet and Xander are the main characters in Fourth Wing, neither of them is the hardest character to cast in Amazon's TV adaptation.

14 Daryl McCormack

Known for good luck to you, leo grande (2022), twisters (2024).

Daryl McCormack is an Irish actor who could become a household name within the next few years. McCormack gained a lot of attention starring alongside Emma Thompson in the rom-com Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, in which he held his own alongside the legendary actor. He also proved himself to be a charismatic romantic lead in a movie, bringing depth to the character beyond simply being good-looking.

McCormack recently appeared in a brief but pivotal role as Jeb in Twisters , showing that he is ready to step into some of the bigger genre roles. He has a likable presence and strong romantic connection that is needed to play into the relationship between Xaden and Violet. However, McCormack has also shown an intensity under the surface and even an angry side which is also needed . He will next be seen as part of the star-studded cast of Wake Up Dead Man , which could raise his profile enough to secure a role like this.

13 Manny Jacinto

Known for the good place (2016-2020), the acolyte (2024), 12 staz nair, known for game of thrones (2011-2019), rebel moon part 1 (2023), and rebel moon part 2 (2024).

Staz Nair is a British actor who has excelled at playing strong and intense characters in a number of genre shows and movies. His first television role was in the last three seasons of Game of Thrones , where Nair played the main Dothraki warrior in Daenerys' Khalasar, Qhono. Though he did not have many lines, Nair carried himself as a strong presence on screen.

More recently, he has found a similarly intense and mysterious warrior as Tarak in Zack Snyder's two-part Rebel Moon saga . Tarak is a nobleman who has taken on a life as a blacksmith. He is introduced in the movie showing his skills to form a connection to creatures, even taming a flying beast and allowing himself to ride it. That moment is enough to convincingly show why Nair would fit nicely into the role of the dragon rider in Fourth Wing .

11 John Boyega

Known for attack the block (2011), star wars: the force awakens (2015), and pacific rim: uprising (2018).

While it is likely that the Fourth Wing series will go for a lesser-known talent to fill the role of Xaden, should they seek some star power, John Boyega could be a fun option for the role. Boyega is no stranger to playing a rebel hero who is fighting against a powerful enemy, as he is best known for his role as Finn in the Star Wars sequels . It would be interesting to see him take on the more brooding role of Xaden after some fans complained that Finn was made to be too comedic of a character in those movies.

However, Boyega has also shown his ability to play Xaden in other roles, such as Pacific Rim: Uprising and They Cloned Tyrone , two roles that show him as the heroic lead and the brooding rebel protagonist , respectively. Boyega also shined in his breakout role in the sci-fi movie Attack the Block, which also had him playing a more intense lead yet one who steps up to save the day when he is needed.

10 D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai

Known for reservation dogs (2012-2023).

It is unclear what age ranges the Fourth Wing show will be looking for with its main characters. If they are intending to go slightly younger, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai would be an ideal pick. Woon-A-Tai is a Canadian actor who recently became an Emmy nominee for his breakout role in the acclaimed series Reservation Dogs . With that show now wrapped up, Woon-A-Wai might be looking for a new series to jump into and one that has a grander scope.

While Reservation Dogs was a comedy and showed Woon-A-Tai's hilarious side, he also played a character who deals with a lot of pain and loss in his life, just as Xaden has . He is a young actor who looks to be setting himself up as a big star in the years to come and a role in a high-profile fantasy series like this could be what propels him to become a household name.

9 Danny Ramirez

Known for the falcon and the winter soldier (2021) and top gun: maverick (2022)..

As soon as he made his MCU debut in Joaquín Torres in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier , Danny Ramirez became a fan favorite. Joaquín's characterization, from his brief scenes in the MCU miniseries, is as a friendly and optimistic sidekick. However, the character will likely be further developed after taking up the Falcon mantle in Captain America: Brave New World . Ramirez’s performance in this upcoming movie will hopefully show his ability to play a character who is a leader with power that is not unconditional.

Xaden is the leader of a specific group of young adults but is looked down upon by most of the people in Navarre. However, he also has one of the most powerful signets in the Fourth Wing books . Ramirez’s other past projects show his versatility and potential for this role. Notably, he has been cast as Manny for The Last of Us season 2 . Ramirez is on the rise as an action star and would be a great addition to Fourth Wing .

8 Dev Patel

Known for slumdog millionaire (2008) and the green knight (2021)..

After achieving his breakthrough with Slumdog Millionaire , making appearances in several indie films, and winning an Oscar nomination, Dev Patel is making an interesting return to action movies. His film The Green Knight , based on a medieval text, is a confusing but incredibly captivating surrealistic fantasy adventure, amplified by the actors’ talents. Patel’s later movie Monkey Man is like John Wick in many ways , but he has turned out to be just as good as Keanu Reeves at portraying an understated intensity during stylish fight scenes.

Patel could bring this single-minded determination and choreography experience to the role of Xaden. Looking far back enough, Patel is also one of the few redeeming parts of the notorious live-action The Last Airbender movie . Like Xaden, Zuko deals with complicated notions of honor and loyalty. With Patel showing interest in new genres, he might be ready to add an epic fantasy series to his repertoire.

7 Charles Melton

Known for riverdale (2017-2023) and may december (2023)..

Charles Melton has already been the star of a hit teen-to-young-adult franchise as Reggie Mantle, who is sadly missing from Riverdale season 7 . While Reggie is an antagonist to the main characters at several points in the series, he still demonstrates himself to be charming, romantic, and sympathetic, all necessary components in bringing Xaden to life on screen. However, Melton’s more recent role in the acclaimed drama May December has even more interesting implications for his potential to play Xaden.

In May December, Melton plays an apparently content husband and father, but trauma from his youth becomes the cornerstone of the movie’s plot. While Xaden has a completely different backstory, Melton’s ability to play a psychologically complex character is valuable. Xaden’s father and his followers were executed after they attempted to rebel against Navarre’s government, leaving Xaden the de facto leader of the rebels’ children at a young age.

6 Taylor Zakhar Perez

Known for the kissing booth 2 (2020) and red, white & royal blue (2023)..

Taylor Zakhar Perez is known as a rom-com star, but his all-around talent would make him suited to a dramatic action fantasy series. Since Red, White & Royal Blue , Perez has been in no new movies or TV shows and has no confirmed upcoming projects, and everyone is curious about what he will do next. He has some impactful moments in Red, White & Royal Blue of playing a strong future political leader, something that plays into Xaden’s character as well.

However, the romantic part of Perez’s history of rom-coms would also be one of his biggest strengths as Xaden. Perez has delivered in some scenes with palpable romantic and sexual tension, with on-screen partners who are also worthy of praise. If Perez were matched with someone playing Violet with whom he has as much chemistry as Joey King or Nicholas Galitzine, the love story that will be one of the biggest challenges faced by the Fourth Wing TV show would be a hit.

This custom image shows Jamie and Claire from Outlander in front of the ACOTAR and Fourth Wing book covers.

STARZ's Outlander can help the creative teams of Hulu's A Court of Thorns and Roses and Amazon's Fourth Wing avoid a common fantasy pitfall.

5 Regé-Jean Page

Known for bridgerton (2020-present) and dungeons & dragons: honor among thieves (2023)..

Somewhat ironically, Regé-Jean Page demonstrates his ability to portray several of Xaden’s most important characteristics in Bridgerton . Simon is romantic but an action hero-adjacent character, what with the fights and duels he gets into with his future wife’s brothers. However, Page's tense-dynamic-turned-romance with Phoebe Dynevor contributed to Bridgerton’s massive popularity. Page is another actor who, if he were paired with the right on-screen partner, would take everyone’s breath away with the romantic aspects of Fourth Wing’s plot.

On the other hand, Page gained some more typical action-hero experience starring alongside seasoned action stars such as Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez. Page’s paladin character is played off as a joke, mainly because his serious persona is written to contrast with the wacky antics of the rest of the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves cast . However, Page never breaks character — with some adjustment to his approach because of the different tone, Page could play another serious military leader in Fourth Wing .

4 Michael B. Jordan

Known for creed (2015) and black panther (2018)..

Michael B. Jordan is an established, acclaimed action star known for his powerful and intense roles who would elevate Fourth Wing with his name alone. Jordan’s performances as Erik “Killmonger” Stevens and Adonis Creed both demonstrate shades of Xaden’s persona that could be useful experiences if Jordan were cast as him. Killmonger is an unwavering and effective soldier and militaristic leader, while Adonis Creed is a determined and good-natured athlete. Both characters are impulsive, something that Xaden does not share, as he must be strategic and cautious in every interaction.

From a combination of these character traits, Jordan could build Xaden’s character. Xaden is a skilled leader whose strengths lie in political and military knowledge (at least this world’s version of a dragon-augmented military). However, he is a good person at heart who only wants to protect others and ensure the country of Navarre’s future. Additionally, Jordan has the presence to make Xaden a dominating figure. His experience playing a sympathetic villain/anti-hero could also be useful to the parts of the story when Violet considers Xaden an enemy.

3 Mena Massoud

Known for aladdin (2019) and the royal treatment (2022)..

Mena Massoud is best known for playing the title character of the live-action Aladdin remake, in which he gives a commendable performance. Aladdin and The Royal Treatment demonstrate Massoud’s major Disney prince energy, which is why it would be great to see him in a darker intense role. Additionally, Massoud has not had any mainstream roles since Aladdin and deserves another chance to shine in a popular property — because while Aladdin received average reviews, the entire cast was excellent.

Massoud’s involvement in the rumored Aladdin 2 is unconfirmed at this point, but he has some other upcoming projects that will hopefully win him some more attention. He is the star of the crime thriller In Broad Daylight and will appear in Julia Stiles’ romance Wish You Were Here alongside Kelsey Grammer and Jennifer Grey. With action, drama, and romance on the horizon — and the status as a star of a billion-dollar movie — Massoud should not be ignored when it comes to casting Xaden.

2 Avan Jogia

Known for zombieland: double tap (2019) and resident evil: raccoon city (2021)..

Jogia’s under-the-radar roles in projects of other genres speak of his general talent and suggest that he would be able to live up to the complexities of Xaden’s backstory and character arc.

A lesser-known star with some underrated adventure movies, Avan Jogia could become a breakout star overnight by playing Xaden. While initially an awkward rookie police officer in over his head, Jogia’s version of the iconic game hero Leon Kennedy becomes a more typical action hero as the conflict of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City escalates. There is a strong argument that Jogia’s Leon should have been the focus of Raccoon City .

However, Jogia’s under-the-radar roles in projects of other genres speak of his general talent and suggest that he would be able to live up to the complexities of Xaden’s backstory and character arc. For example, he starred as Puck in a modern take on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and as King Tutankhamun in the fictionalized historical miniseries Tut . Overall, Jogia has the experience to be a surprise fan-favorite actor as Xaden .

An image of a golden dragon in front of a cover of Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing turned blue

Amazon is adapting Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing for the small screen, and the series will bring many amazing moments from the book to life.

1 Evan Evagora

Known for fantasy island (2020) and star trek: picard (2020-2023)..

Evan Evagora is also a lesser-known actor, whose main claim to fame is his role as the Romulan Elnor in Star Trek: Picard . Elnor is raised and trained by the Qowat Milat, who teach him to practice “absolute candor. ” As a result, Elnor has no sense of how to lie. Ironically, a huge part of Xaden’s arc is keeping secrets from Violet in order to protect other people. However, this is no reason for Evagora to not play Xaden, as he portrays an intelligent and skilled soldier in Star Trek: Picard .

From his time playing Elnor, Evagora has experience portraying a calculated and reserved persona, as well as at least some practice with some of the weapons Xaden might use. Elnor also has an interesting relationship with Picard, a father figure to him, which Evagora might draw upon to show Xaden’s emotions about following in his father’s footsteps. Yet Evagora is still just one possibility to play Xaden Riorson in Fourth Wing .

Fourth Wing temp tv series book poster

Fourth Wing

Based on the novel series by Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing is an action-adventure fantasy series in development for Prime Video. Announced in 2024, Fourth Wing will follow the adventures of a young woman named Violet Sorrengail, who has been taken from her peaceful book-reading life and thrust into a world of danger when she is forced by her mother to join an elite group of dragon-riding warriors.

Fourth Wing

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Movie Review: Delicate and powerful, ‘Good One’ is one of the year’s indie breakouts

Image

This image released by Metrograph shows Lilly Collias in a scene from “Good One.” (Metrograph via AP)

This image released by Metrograph shows James Le Gros,, left, and Lilly Collias in a scene from “Good One.” (Metrograph via AP)

This image released by Metrograph shows James Le Gros, left, and Lilly Collias in a scene from “Good One.” (Metrograph via AP)

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A 17-year-old’s perception of her father is forever altered on a three-day backpacking trip in India Donaldson’s excellent debut “ Good One ,” in theaters Friday .

Something happens. And then something doesn’t happen. But that’s more of the tear point on the already delicate fabric of a relationship that has been deteriorating from neglect for years.

The trip to the Catskills was envisioned as a joint family trip. Chris (James Le Gros) and his daughter Sam (newcomer Lily Collias) planned to go with Chris’s old friend Matt (Danny McCarthy) and his teenage son. But when they pull up to Matt’s place, there’s an argument taking place between the father and son, who retreats to the apartment as Matt stomps to Chris’s car. The teenage son is no longer joining them.

Donaldson focuses her camera on Sam, whose face and deeply expressive eyes tell you everything you need to know: This is weird and it doesn’t feel right. Suddenly she’s on a boys trip with a pair of sad middle aged men who have known one another for decades and whose lives haven’t worked out the way they thought. Both are divorced. Chris has moved on and has a new baby. Matt is still in the early stages of having his life upended. And, boy, do they talk about their failed relationships, one of whom is obviously Sam’s mother. “I couldn’t make her happy.” “She was the one who started doing things first.” “I didn’t want to get divorced.”

Sam rolls her eyes a lot of the time; Other times she responds insightfully. The guys seem to half hear her, but also not. They long ago decided on their own narrative, their victimhood, and Sam is not going to change that with a bit of innocent truth.

Image

Are they always this honest with their disappointments, failures and shortcomings around their kids, you wonder? Or is this a new thing happening on this trip? Chris, in particular, has forgotten that Sam, as worldly and wise as she seems, is still ultimately just a kid. You sense that Sam has already started to realize that her father is as flawed as anyone; but on this trip, his full self is on display.

Image

All of the acting is terrific and so naturalistic that it’s easy to forget that these are actors performing lines that they’ve memorized in front of a camera. Le Gros as the fastidious super camper, who freaks out about his daughter’s safety from bears when he discovers that Matt was eating in his tent, but does little later on; And McCarthy as a failed actor and now failed husband who can be charming and fun but is mostly annoying and gross. But the real breakout is Collias. Her face and presence, empathetic and knowing, carries the whole film in an unforgettable depiction of modern girlhood with all of the dreaminess, awkwardness and boredom.

Donaldson, like Kelly Reichardt , has a keen eye for the smallest of details; A reaction, a wince, even a blank expression that says everything. She also knows when to turn away from the dialogue and the people and give the audience a nature break. One of many great decisions was to have Sam on her period during the trip, something she deals with silently behind trees and bushes as the guys wait impatiently.

At one point the guys are dreaming about what they’d do differently if they had a second chance at life. Matt would be a philosopher. Chris would own a bookstore. What about Sam, they ask. She responds that hopefully she still has a shot at deciding on this life. Indeed.

These stakes might seem comparatively small in a movie landscape of deadly tornadoes, apocalypses and multiverses colliding. But that’s what makes it so special. It is humanity, with all of its beauties and disappointments, as most of us experience it. And it’s one that will likely stay with you for some time.

“Good One,” a Metrograph pictures release in limited theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “language.” Running time: 90 minutes. Four stars out of four.

movie review good luck to you leo grande

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COMMENTS

  1. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

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    More than a mere philosophical exercise, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is sweet, sexy, and certainly the new favorite film of Father Intintola from The Sopranos. Full Review | Dec 14, 2022.

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    Jun 16, 2022. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande turns out to be a wise, amusing, unexpectedly touching exploration of human psyches, the bodies that house them and radical self-acceptance — by way of a literate two-hander executed by actors at supreme ease with each other and, by extension, their audience. Read More.

  14. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Review

    Verdict. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a heartfelt dramedy about a middle-aged woman and the sex worker she hires and their candid conversations about life, shame, and acceptance.

  15. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande Movie Review

    Our review: Parents say ( 3 ): Kids say ( 1 ): This drama was undoubtedly very inexpensive to make, but it's incredibly rich in the themes and messages it seeks to convey. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande feels play-like in its simple, single setting and two-character structure. While that could be an issue in other films, here it matters little ...

  16. Good Luck To You, Leo Grande Review: Emma Thompson Is Magnetic ...

    "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" is a spellbinding piece of filmmaking, an acting masterclass, a celebration of the written word, and a powerful cinematic plea for self-acceptance and self-love ...

  17. Good Luck To You, Leo Grande review: Emma Thompson takes this post

    Good Luck To You, Leo Grande was filmed in Norfolk last March, while England was still in lockdown, which partially explains why almost everything happens in just two settings (the aforementioned ...

  18. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande review: Emma Thompson dramedy

    Cons. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a dramedy shot during the pandemic that demonstrates, with the right actors and the right story to tell, you don't need much more than a stylish hotel room to make magic. Written by Katy Brand and directed by Sophie Hyde, Good Luck to You,Leo Grande is a chamber play about Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) a ...

  19. Review

    In "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande," Emma Thompson plays Nancy Stokes, a widow and retired religion education teacher who has endured a lifetime of erotic unfulfillment.

  20. Good Luck To You, Leo Grande Review

    Release Date: 16 Jun 2022. Original Title: Good Luck To You, Leo Grande. There is no shortage of sexual awakening stories centred on young ladies' experience of the big O for the first time ...

  21. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

    Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a 2022 sex comedy drama film directed by Sophie Hyde and written by Katy Brand. The film stars Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack. The story revolves around a woman who seeks a young sex worker to help her experience pleasurable sex. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 22 January 2022 ...

  22. GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE

    Now Streaming on HuluIn GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE, two-time Academy Award winner Emma Thompson (Love, Actually) embodies the candor and apprehension of re...

  23. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande review: A lackluster two-hander

    Consequently, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande ends up being a surprisingly uneven film. As a compelling, if overly didactic, film about the importance of maintaining a healthy sex life, the movie ...

  24. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande : a review

    In the recent Berlinale presentation of her latest film, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022), Thompson's declarations on her character (a recently widowed woman called Nancy Stokes) received ...

  25. Good Luck To You Leo Grande

    Good Luck To You Leo Grande. 1 hr 33 min. Romance. 2023. A. Nancy Stokes, a retired school teacher seeking romance and adventure, hires Leo Grande, a young sex worker. Can Nancy take charge of her sexual life following three decades of unsatisfying marital relationships with the same man? ... Movies. TV Shows. Support. Help Center. Terms Of Use ...

  26. Casting Xaden Riorson For The Fourth Wing TV Show: 14 Actors Perfect

    Daryl McCormack is an Irish actor who could become a household name within the next few years. McCormack gained a lot of attention starring alongside Emma Thompson in the rom-com Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, in which he held his own alongside the legendary actor. He also proved himself to be a charismatic romantic lead in a movie, bringing depth to the character beyond simply being good-looking.

  27. Movie Review: Delicate and powerful, 'Good One' is one of the year's

    Donaldson focuses her camera on Sam, whose face and deeply expressive eyes tell you everything you need to know: This is weird and it doesn't feel right. Suddenly she's on a boys trip with a pair of sad middle aged men who have known one another for decades and whose lives haven't worked out the way they thought. Both are divorced.