The actress herself said that it takes “a certain courage” to show off without veils
In the end he offers himself full frontal, but it’s the least erotic scene there is. Rather, it is the culmination of a path of self-acceptance and sexuality that the teacher Nancy Stokes took a lifetime to conquer and that Emma Thompson made live on the screen with an energy that cannot be forgotten. She said it herself that it takes “a certain courage” to show herself naked at sixty-two but the scene in which she takes off her bathrobe and looks completely naked in a mirror (thus offering herself, certainly not in passing, even to eyes of the viewer) is neither itchy nor provocative, rather it is the inevitable culmination of a story that began with the admission of his sexual dissatisfactions and that must end with their overcoming.
Written by a woman, Katy Brand, and directed by a woman, Sophie Hyde, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
recounts the encounters in a hotel room of the self-styled Nancy Stokes (later we will find out her real name) with a young “sex worker” (sex worker in original), played by Daryl MacCormack. She, a retired religion teacher and widow for three years, has decided to discover what she has never experienced with her husband: an orgasm. And for this you have decided to hire a professional in the sector, the Leo Grande of the title.
Everything simple? Of course not, because a life of denial of one’s sexuality cannot be erased in a couple of hours and the film enjoys (and amuses us) following Nancy’s doubts, fears and hesitations, which Emma Thompson knows how to return with the skill that everyone recognizes them. Thus we see Leo’s efforts to undo the woman’s shyness and fears, but also her attempts to postpone what she is in that room for, questioning and harassing Leo as she did with her pupils.
The meetings between the two will eventually be four, and the viewer will see how they end up only in the last one but each time we discover Nancy’s steps forward towards the goal she has set herself (the negotiations on the limits to be put to the oral sex test are from the anthology), but what we are offered scene after scene is above all the discovery of a less repressed and castrating attitude towards sexuality and relationships between partners. There is talk of orgasm but also of education, pornography and paid sex, feelings of guilt and desires to be released, always of course with that touch of irony and lightness that erase any possible accusation of bad taste.
Encouraged by a partner who holds the game splendidly, Emma Thompson plays all the strings of her skill, now insinuating now reticent, now provocative now fearful to arrive, in the scene in which she has to deal with a former student (Isabella Laughland), to face even the mistakes of a whole career of teacher. Leo too will end up having to deal with his own “lies” and with the role he has built himself to do that job, but Nancy always remains at the center of the scene – triumphantly -. In the end able to make people forget the cliché about Anglo-Saxon coldness (“no sex, we’re English” we use to say) with an act of love for one’s body and its “needs” that the final nude, so absolutely normal, with all the signs that age brings with it, only makes it even stronger and more meaningful.
February 12, 2022 (change February 14, 2022 | 10:26)
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