Sophie Hyde Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Festival Predictions

2022 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Sophie Hyde’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Published on November 23, 2021

It may become a once, twice, and third selection is a charm for filmmaker Sophie Hyde this coming January. The Aussie helmer saw her debut feature 52 Tuesdays get selected for the 2013 edition of Sundance (she won the Directing Award) and her sophomore film Animals premiered at the 2019 edition and with a good long lead in post (production took place in March) means this mature, audience pleaser, sex positive comedy with a post menopause protag could fill in the laugher component for the upcoming edition. Hyde’s Good Luck To You, Leo Grande used the backdrop London with Emma Thompson in the pleasure seat and Daryl McCormack set as the titular Leo Grande.

Gist: Nancy Stokes (Thompson) is a 55-year-old widow and ex-teacher who feels her stale but stable marriage robbed her of sexually invigorating experiences. To make up for lost time, she hires the services of an escort, or “sex therapist,” a man in his early twenties, for a night of sexual bliss.

Production Co./Producers: Debbie Gray, Adrian Politowski.

Prediction: PREMIERES.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Cornerstone (domestic, international).

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).