In LeoGrandeFilm, Emma Thompson finds a kind of humanity and vulnerability in a sex movie that explores the insecurity and shame that is associated with intimacy and pleasure—aspects that Hollywood so often ignores. More of this please!
, she voiced a wise macaw named Polynesia, and she still, in spite of everything offensively atrocious about that movie, managed to be pretty damn great.
The point of this is to say that it shouldn’t come as a surprise when Thompson delivers an award-worthy performance in a new film. But it’s a testament to her talent that what shemanages to somehow present her anew, with that aforementioned brilliance showcased in a novel, refreshing light. She plays a widow cautiously attempting to experience all the sexual activity her long, boring, and chaste marriage never afforded her. She hires a young escort to help through a checklist of sexual acts she hopes to explore, perhaps even achieving the orgasm that she has never experienced in her life.