Film@BirrTheatre brings you the best of Irish, world and independent cinema on the theatre's big screen, every Thursday night at 8pm. What a night at The Baftas recently, resulting in winners from some our screenings! Elvis- Austin Butler, best actor beating favourite Colin Farrell in a shock upset! The Banshee's too, grabbing best film and nominee's for this weeks offering for Emma Thomson as best actress in Good Luck To You Leo Grande - an irresistible, impeccably acted comedy drama with great chemistry between the two leads.
Dare thee not to chuckle out loud at this one!!
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a 2022 sexcomedy-drama film directed by Sophie Hyde and written by Katy Brand, starring Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack. The story revolves around a woman who seeks a young sex worker to achieve an orgasm.
Nancy Stokes, a recently widow, retired schoolteacher, doesn’t know good sex. Whatever it may be Nancy is pretty sure she has never had it, but she is determined to do something about that. Her plan involves a hotel room and an impossibly good-looking Irish sex worker: Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack from NENAGH!!!!!). He is confident, dapper and takes pride in being good at his job.
Nancy has a checklist of things she’d like to try but struggles with being desperately self-conscious and inexperienced, and swerves Leo’s amorous advances, deflecting the young man by questioning him about his family and why he is working in his chosen profession.
At its core, Leo Grande is a film about the winding journey of acceptance and self-love. Both Leo and Nancy, like so many if we are honest, struggle with their own paths in life and push back on the idea of being their whole selves in their day-to-day lives: Nancy constantly runs from the opportunities to take what she wants in the bedroom, and Leo struggles to connect with his family due to his career choices, which he’s immensely proud of.
“It’s something unlike anything I’ve ever done before and I had never seen anything like this before. The first thing that struck me was its sheer originality, then what struck me next was the real necessity of this film — the way that we talk about pleasure or shame — I didn’t realize how thirsty I was for a story like this until it came along.” Emma Thompson
‘’ A refreshing, intelligent bedroom drama, Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is a quietly hilarious study on emotional and sexual intimacy carried by two powerhouse performances.‘’
- Stefania Sarrubba, Little White Lies
‘’ Hyde’s film is a psychological conversation piece titillated by the potential of sex... Thompson commits to revealing the full woman, quite literally… McCormack is fantastic.’’
- Amy Nicholson, Variety
‘’ A touching little two-hander that does right by its title character.... it’s encouraging when a nice morsel of a movie like “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” proves totally unafraid of looking at itself in the mirror.’’
-David Ehrlich, IndieWire
The chemistry is real, the issues are real, its originality and its sheer necessity for this film was quite apparent to our very dear Emma Thompson. Come see for yourself the 97 minutes, of laugh out loud sex comedy drama for age 16 +.
Birr Theatre & Arts Centre is the place to be THIS Thursday night at 8pm.
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