We bring to the sex act the aphrodisiac of passion, the art of improvisation, the pleasure of play, and the delights of the body’s
senses.

We bring to the act of making love the heat and focus of the present moment and all that has happened to us and all that has not.

As our bodies blend together, we are joined by family, friends, ancestors, and strangers. Good sex is a symphony of experiences all accelerated by the conductor of desire.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a movie about sex that brings all these elements together with elegance and panache.

Emma Thompson as Nancy and Daryl McCormack as Leo

In the opening scene, we watch Leo (Daryl McCormack) stride gracefully down the street. He is a handsome 20-something biracial sex worker from Ireland who is affirms both body and sex positivity.

Leo arrives at a hotel and enters the room that has been rented for the first of what will be four appointments with Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson). She is a 55-year-old widow and a retired religious education teacher.

Although, Nancy is pleasantly surprised by Leo’s smooth conversational skills, she is more than a little nervous. She is full of questions about him and how he feels about the work that he does. But she is really most interested in what he thinks of her – her body, her age, what she has and has not done in her life. She is ashamed of her lack of sexual knowledge and experience. Her husband never took the time or empathy to bring her to orgasm and so she now has a list of sexual acts she wants Leo to help her explore.

Nancy and Leo dancing

Leo and Nancy come from very different worlds and are connected through eros. As they get to know each other, they discover together what it means to have reverence for the body. Screenplay writer Katy Brand enables us to empathize with this young man and this elderly woman who both have survived our sex-feared and sex-obsessed cultures. In the end, the movie sanctifies sex. Or as French writer Francis Rene de Chauterbriand said:

“There is nothing beautiful or sweet or great in life that is not mysterious.”