Luck has nothing to do with it, when it’s Emma Thompson

GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE

Director: Sophie Hyde

Cast: Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack

Rating: (M) ★★★+

One of the first things I was taught in film critic school was something called the French Paradox, which states that ‘‘the French are funny, sex is funny, comedies are funny, yet no French sex comedies are funny’’, although it’s perhaps true that this maxim can be applied the world over.

The rather British Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Rialto, Reading) is certainly more comedy than drama, being very light on its feet and without anything much in the way of dramatic incident, yet it’s short on genuine laughs and unfortunately hampered by a contrived and somewhat unbelievable screenplay.

What elevates it to something special is the two leads, in particular Emma Thompson who is astoundingly good, the great Dame somehow giving the performance of a lifetime in what is frankly an underwritten role, with relative unknown Daryl McCormack more than holding his own even if the two never get to deliver any truly memorable lines.

Basically, it’s a madewithintheconfinesoflockdown twohander, set almost entirely in a sterile hotel room, in which Nancy, a sexually repressed widow with two grown children she doesn’t seem to like, employs the services of a much younger sex worker, the titular Leo Grande, who appears to be the perfect man, or at least always knows the right things to say, to give her the orgasm she’s never had while also ticking off a list of things she’s never tried because her husband found them demeaning.

Far be it for me to spoil the ending.