In a cinematic landscape overflowing with narratives about sex and intimacy, the 2022 sex dramedy Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, directed by Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde and written by Katy Brand, shines as a beacon of positive creativity and inspiration across generations.

The story follows Nancy Stokes/Susan Robinson (Emma Thompson), a retired religion teacher and widow, who hires Leo Grande/Connor (Daryl McCormack), a young sex worker, to help her reclaim her identity and discover sexual satisfaction, something she has lacked her entire life. At first, the film’s premise may seem like just another provocative and sensationalist addition to a crowded genre. However, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande tackles conversations about sex, sexual pleasure, and intimate connection with remarkable realism. It is always graceful and honest, sometimes reaching poetic and touching depths.

Do we really think we have more answers than questions about sex today? In recent decades, sexual discourse has become prevalent in cinema and on television. Honestly, not all of it has been effective. Often, films and TV shows exploit this hackneyed topic frivolously to satisfy our voyeuristic tendencies (and ensure box office success). Ultimately, this reinforces the usual stereotypes and clichés rather than dismantling and rethinking them, especially in light of what the #MeToo movement has unmasked. After all, humans have been selling sex longer than anything else since the dawn of time.

Instead, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande takes a completely different path, stemming from a specific inner urge: the desire to understand what happens when we reveal our insecurities to ourselves and others by shedding our armour (and aliases). The result is a film that explores the transformation of the body over a lifetime, the enduring nature of sexual desire and intimacy, and the associated shame and prejudice. Above all, the film acknowledges that ageing does not erase these experiences. Instead, they evolve into new and sometimes unexpected forms.

• Sex and the Hotel Room: Intimacy in a Confined Space
• Nancy/Susan Through the Judging Glass: Ageing, Shame, and Self-Discovery
• Leo Grande/Connor: A Positive and Non-Performative Male Character
• A Step in the Right Direction for Middle-Aged Sexuality and the Female Gaze

Sex and the Hotel Room: Intimacy in a Confined Space

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande successfully challenges stereotypes and normalised perceptions about middle-aged women’s relationships with sex and their bodies. Contrary to what one might expect, the setting is not the seductive streets of a crowded metropolis. It is a sterile hotel room. The protagonists are not fashionable socialites wearing Manolos and sipping cosmopolitans. Nancy and Leo Grande are ordinary characters with whom it is easier to identify and empathise. We are far from the world of Sex and the City. We are also far from its revival and sequel, And Just Like That…, which aimed to expand the show’s scope by addressing new issues related to sexuality and sexual discourse between Carrie and her friends in their fifties.

Setting almost all of the action inside a hotel room and unfolding it over four chapters, each representing an encounter between the two protagonists, proves to be a wise choice. This theatrical approach puts Hyde’s minimalist directorial style entirely at the service of Thompson’s and McCormack’s performances. The camera captures all the silences, intimate moments, awkwardness, angry outbursts, and comedic lines in real time. Brand’s compelling screenplay conveys a wide range of emotions. Its incisive, moving, and sometimes humorous dialogue makes everything incredibly believable. Ultimately, we find ourselves catapulted into the hotel room as well.

Much like a theatre production, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande makes the most of its limited setting and props. This is primarily thanks to the work of cinematographer Bryan Mason and production designer Miren Marañón. The neutral colour palette and immaculate furnishings—including a bed, a sofa, a few armchairs, a minibar, and a full-length mirror—create a psychological microcosm on the verge of detonation. The only way to see the outside world is through a window. Similar to Roman Polanski‘s Carnage and Steven Knight‘s Locke, the characters find themselves in a confined space, facing sometimes paradoxical scenarios that force them—and us, as viewers—to confront their inner conflicts and their most authentic, vulnerable selves.

Nancy/Susan Through the Judging Glass: Ageing, Shame, and Self-Discovery

Sophie Hyde and Katy Brand liberate the female body from the confines of mainstream, voyeuristic traditions that often reduce it to a vessel for eroticism and sexual desire, seen only through the male gaze. This issue becomes even more complex when applied to the body of an ordinary, middle-aged woman such as Nancy. As TIME film critic Stephanie Zacharek stated, “Older women’s bodies, not to mention their sexuality, are something no one wants to think or talk about, least of all older women themselves”—and indeed not cinema.

Over the course of 97 minutes, viewers catch glimpses of Leo Grande and Nancy’s clothed, semi-naked, or fully naked bodies. Rather than setting up an aesthetic comparison that celebrates youthful, standardised beauty, the film uses images of its protagonists’ bodies to explore acceptance, self-criticism, consent, and desire. Leo Grande has a nuanced and sophisticated awareness of his own beauty. Yet, he is neither arrogant nor does he flaunt his confidence. His body is Michelangelo-esque: youthful and meticulously crafted. Nancy, on the other hand, is unfamiliar with her own body, which bears the marks of ageing. She cannot see her own beauty. She feels invisible and insecure, a slave to a life of shame and self-judgment.

With its female gaze, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande challenges the dominant models. The climax occurs when Susan, having abandoned her alias, Nancy, examines her naked body in the full-length mirror. Adopting a pose reminiscent of Eve in medieval paintings, she views herself for the first time with a neutral gaze. In the end, she experiences a newfound sense of positive, almost juvenile surprise and curiosity. Emma Thompson gives it her all in this intense scene, which serves as the film’s manifesto. Her performance earned her a nomination for Best Actress at the 80th Golden Globe Awards.

In this moment, Nancy’s seeing her body as her own, an unlocked space in which she can experience this beautiful human thing—sexual pleasure, erotic pleasure—and she’s completely at ease with it, and she’s so happy and released. It’s a moment of deep, deep release, and that’s not something that anyone I know associates with standing in front of a mirror. That’s not what I feel, but she does. So that’s what’s happening in that moment, I feel, for her, an unlocking.

_{Emma Thompson discusses the scene in front of the mirror with Harper’s Bazaar}

Leo Grande/Connor: A Positive and Non-Performative Male Character

Leo Grande is a character with more depth than meets the eye. When it comes to sex comedies and dramas that intertwine eroticism, intimacy, pleasure, and gender dynamics, a specific type of male character always comes to mind. If he’s a sex worker, then double that expectation. Put simply, we expect a Mr. Grey: a rich, flawless, fearless conqueror and saviour with an air of mysterious, fascinating darkness and a hint of torment. Leo Grande, on the other hand, embodies the opposite of this romanticised and eroticized form of toxic masculinity that uses beauty and sex as means to reinforce a dominant status and a desire for control. In the context of post-#MeToo narratives, Hyde, Brand, and McCormack breathe life into a necessary and deeply reimagined male character.

Leo Grande is a young man who embodies non-performative masculinity. Above all, he is not crushed by the role of saviour of his female counterpart. Neither he nor Susan saves the other. Instead, it is their mutual sharing of vulnerability and fears that sets them both free. Susan’s first-ever orgasm is all the more beautiful because it does not come at Leo Grande’s hands.

McCormack proves himself to be a sensitive actor, portraying a welcoming and non-threatening male identity. Leo Grande is self-deprecating, a good listener, and respectful. He never judges, mocks, belittles, or pushes. In short, he never uses his body or masculinity as weapons, but rather as a means to open an emotional dialogue. Along these lines, it is interesting to note how the film portrays sex workers with dignity and professionalism, free from moralism and prejudice. To prepare for his role, McCormack spoke with several real sex workers:

I had to be aware that it wasn’t my job to encapsulate what the male sex worker story is – or what the sex worker story is. […] There’s no template for what a sex worker’s life looks like. It’s all really individual because they’re offering themselves within the service. They draw their own boundaries. They draw what they want to do.

_{Daryl McCormack discusses how he prepared for his role as Leo Grande with Square Mile}

A Step in the Right Direction for Middle-Aged Sexuality and the Female Gaze

One film alone cannot change the internal dialogue that many women have with themselves and their bodies. Nor is it enough to change how storytelling portrays middle-aged women. However, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a step in the right direction in a landscape full of stories that capitalise on the human desire to rethink body image, sexuality, and everything that comes with it in a more positive and unbiased way.

The film reminds us that feeling at home in your own body is a lifelong journey. For women, accepting and celebrating their imperfections as they reach middle age is a revolutionary act. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande encourages redefining self-narratives and embracing the body as a safe space. It is a sanctuary for dialogue and self-discovery where self-esteem, vulnerability, sexuality, and desire can coexist without shame or judgment—at any age.