Berlin (AP) – It was not an easy moment for actress Emma Thompson (63). In her new film, My Lessons With Leo, she plays a retired teacher who has never had an orgasm.
Because she wants to change that, she hires a young sex worker (Daryl McCormack). The two meet in a hotel. When Thompson presented the film at this year’s Berlinale, she had many sympathies on her side.
She spoke there quite quick-wittedly about female lust and admitted that one thing was not easy for her either. Because at the end of the film, her character Nancy steps naked in front of the mirror and looks at herself. That was tough, Thompson said (“Actually… Love”, “Cruella”) in Berlin.
“When I stand in front of the mirror, it always goes like this: I pull something in, turn to the side, I do something,” said the British woman. “I can’t just stand there. Why should I? That’s terrible. But that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Many women are brainwashed throughout their lives to hate their bodies. Thompson formulated a homework assignment.
A very special cinematic moment
“So, try standing in front of a mirror. Take off your clothes and don’t move,” Thompson said. “Just accept it. And don’t judge it. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” The fact that Thompson took this step creates a touching cinematic moment.
The Australian director Sophie Hyde tells the story of an unusual encounter in her film with few resources. The story sounds at first as if the whole thing could have gone quite wrong. Older woman hires young man for sex. But it is thanks to the good dialogues and convincing actors that the story of the two tells a lot more.
The comedy takes an unusually beautiful look at sex work, mutual encounters, body ideals and female desire. In Thompson’s opinion, women’s sexual desire was not taken seriously for a long time. Nancy didn’t grow up in a world where she was constantly asked: So, did you enjoy it? She hopes that after the film there will be more talk about intimacy, lust and shame.
chamber play
The film takes place almost exclusively in a hotel room, but still doesn’t get boring. At the Berlinale, laughter from the audience repeatedly erupted in the hall. At the film festival, Thompson told about the preparations. Sophie had fantastic exercises. They would have laid on the floor and traced their bodies. It’s a great thing anyway – big pieces of paper, and then you mark the places on your body that you like or don’t like, or where something happened to your body.
“And then we spent a day without clothes,” Thompson told journalists. “I mean, you’re all Germans, you’re used to it.” The exercise was incredibly helpful, the Oscar winner noted. She said of her colleague Daryl McCormack (“Peaky Blinders”) that he had a body like a freaking unicorn. You’d think it was easier for him. But that is never easy.
My Lessons With Leo, UK 2022, 97 mins, FSK 12+, by Sophie Hyde, starring Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack
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