Taking place in a hotel room over several encounters, the film tells the story of a repressed religion teacher, Nancy Stokes (Thompson), who has never had an orgasm. She hires a young sex worker, Leo (Daryl McCormack) in an effort to change that.
A 2022 film, it premiered at Sundance, where it won the Audience award, before being released in June 2022, with Hulu releasing it in the US.
Tropes
- Anorgasmia: Nancy's lifelong lack of orgasm serves not only as her Character Arc but a microcosm of the character as a whole.
- Bottle Episode: The movie is set in a hotel room, aside from the penultimate scene, which shows Nancy and Leo meeting in the hotel's restaurant.
- Chekhov's Gun: basically the first thing we learn about Nancy is that she has never had an orgasm and is not expecting to ever have one.
- Female Gaze: The thing that eventually arouses Nancy to the point of orgasm is not having sex with Leo, but watching him as he hunts through her hotel room for a sex toy while he happens to be naked.
- Hollywood Sex: Strongly averted. The complexities, nuances and idiosyncracies of sex are discussed and to a certain extent even deconstructed.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Leo is a genuinely kind, charming, and interesting person. Justified in that, as he admits, apart from getting "slapped around" a little bit and called names, he's a man and so is less liable to get the abuse that female sex workers tend to get, and most of his clients are nice to him.
- Loophole Abuse: As prostitution was technically illegal in the UK during the period the film is set, Leo technically only provides his "company and conversation" to his clients. Whether or not they have sex is entirely their own business. In practice however, he is very much a sex worker.
- Minimalist Cast: There are two main characters, Nancy and Leo. The only other speaking roles are the waitresses in the penultimate scene.
- Mr. Fanservice: Leo is a very handsome, muscular young dude who spends most of the movie in various states of undress. Leo himself takes deliberate steps to invoke this, working very hard to keep his physique, saying that his clients appreciate it.
- Old People are Nonsexual: zigzagged. Nancy has children Leo's age and has had an extremely limited — and largely dissatisfying — sex life with only one person. She hires Leo precisely to avert the trope; her problem is in getting up the gumption to actually go through with it.
- Platonic Prostitution: Discussed. Leo has clients who pay him for this, and legally speaking this is his actual profession.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Nancy reveals that, through cyberstalking, she has learned Leo's real name, he promptly starts getting dressed to leave, as she has crossed his explicitly stated boundaries.
- Sex as a Rite-of-Passage: Leo is only the second person Nancy has ever had sex with, and it's not just sex, but seeking to have an orgasm, that she considers a rite of passage.
- Sex Is Good: The message of the movie, and specifically what Nancy learns from meeting Leo.
- Slut-Shaming: Nancy admits to having been a prude as a teacher and criticized and insulted her female students for their sexuality. She says that she was wrong and apologizes to a former student.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Nancy's complicated relationship with her children, and Leo's complicated relationship with his mother, is a theme throughout the movie. Nancy resents her children for being freer, happier and less inhibited than she is; Leo resents his mother for being unable to cope with his sexuality and consequently disowning him.
