Good Luck To You, Leo Grande. (15.)
Directed by Sophie Hyde.
Starring Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack and Isabella Laughland. 97 mins.
Previously sex in films has tended to be raunchy or steamy or passionate or violent or destructive or, if we’re being honest, look like more effort than it was really worth. Now, for perhaps the first time, a film that is about sex being nice. Emma Thompson is Sophie, a retired, widowed RE teacher who wants to have some good sex, so pays a nice man to come round and give her one.
This is a theatrical two-hander (no innuendo intended): two performers in one setting, an anonymous hotel room. I think the main issue with the piece which was “written and created” by Katy Brand is the same issue you have with action sequels where the old hero has to be coaxed out of retirement to battle one last foe: you know their gonna do it so why bother with the tease? The crux of the piece is Sophie struggling to overcome her inhibitions and get past the shame that she has associated with sex and that’s a very potent subject. But dramatically it does become infuriating watching her constantly find objections and reasons to talk herself of doing it. Yes, it's the whole point, but you'd need the patience of a saint not to at least occasionally want to shout at her, "Oh for crying out loud, just get on with it."
Luckily, her chosen sex worker, Leo, is indeed a saint. Oh Leo, Leo, dancing across the Leo Grande, not just incredibly good looking and physically perfect, but so charming, considerate and articulate he makes Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman look like a crack ho. There’s definitely a subtlety deficit at work here: it’s enough for Sophie to be an RE teacher but to make her one who has never had an orgasm is laying it on a bit thick. It’s guileless and blunt, but you’ll probably forgive it because it is nice, in a good way, and well meaning. Plus, how can you not like a film with a genuinely happy ending.
Directed by Sophie Hyde.
Starring Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack and Isabella Laughland. 97 mins.
Previously sex in films has tended to be raunchy or steamy or passionate or violent or destructive or, if we’re being honest, look like more effort than it was really worth. Now, for perhaps the first time, a film that is about sex being nice. Emma Thompson is Sophie, a retired, widowed RE teacher who wants to have some good sex, so pays a nice man to come round and give her one.
This is a theatrical two-hander (no innuendo intended): two performers in one setting, an anonymous hotel room. I think the main issue with the piece which was “written and created” by Katy Brand is the same issue you have with action sequels where the old hero has to be coaxed out of retirement to battle one last foe: you know their gonna do it so why bother with the tease? The crux of the piece is Sophie struggling to overcome her inhibitions and get past the shame that she has associated with sex and that’s a very potent subject. But dramatically it does become infuriating watching her constantly find objections and reasons to talk herself of doing it. Yes, it's the whole point, but you'd need the patience of a saint not to at least occasionally want to shout at her, "Oh for crying out loud, just get on with it."
Luckily, her chosen sex worker, Leo, is indeed a saint. Oh Leo, Leo, dancing across the Leo Grande, not just incredibly good looking and physically perfect, but so charming, considerate and articulate he makes Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman look like a crack ho. There’s definitely a subtlety deficit at work here: it’s enough for Sophie to be an RE teacher but to make her one who has never had an orgasm is laying it on a bit thick. It’s guileless and blunt, but you’ll probably forgive it because it is nice, in a good way, and well meaning. Plus, how can you not like a film with a genuinely happy ending.
