My Hours with Leo - DVD

Movie: Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) has a dream: she wants to experience sex once in her life that fulfills her completely. An orgasm had never had the widowed teacher. Now, after a monotonous marriage and after the end of her professional life, she wants to make up for what she has been denied so far. The callboy Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) is supposed to help her. At their first meeting in a hotel room outside the city, Nancy is anything but relaxed. The fact that the charming and articulate Leo wants to talk so openly about her sexual desires doesn't exactly make things easier. Nevertheless, she enjoys the rendezvous and books Leo for another meeting a short time later...

"My Hours with Leo" is for long stretches a two-person play with a chamber-play-like character. Something like this usually works very well in the theater, but can quickly seem a bit exhausting in the cinema. That the whole thing works really well in this case, however, has several reasons. For one thing, there's the script by British comedian Katy Brand, which manages the balancing act between comedy and drama very well. The dialogues are excellently written. Through them, the two main characters reveal themselves, break down their emotional walls or abruptly pull them back up. This brings us to the second reason for the success of this film: Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack.

The two deliver a wonderful performance here: Emma Thompson as a woman who wants to fulfill her desires, but can't really get out of her skin. And Daryl McCormack as a charming callboy who perfectly hides his own dreams and fears behind his smile and his open way of dealing with the sexual needs of his clients. In the course of the story, both of them have to let down their protective shields, but this has completely different effects. This is not only superbly acted, but also extremely engagingly directed.

"My Hours with Leo" is an exceedingly funny film, but at the same time thought-provoking. It is an engaging plea for self-acceptance, living out repressed desire, and acknowledging one's weaknesses as part of one's self. It's a film that proves that sometimes all it takes is good dialogue and top-notch actors to make for great entertainment cinema. A very clear case of: Absolutely worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The image of the DVD pleases with a good to very good overall sharpness, which reveals no visible weaknesses such as dirt or image noise. The color scheme is pleasantly warm and appears overall very authentic. The audio, available in Dolby Digital 5.1, is fully dominated by the dialogue, which sounds a bit more centrally mixed in the German language version than in the original version, which seems a bit more coherent. Overall, there is clearly a deserved here: Good!

Extras: In addition to the trailer for the film, the DVD also has a detailed and quite interesting interview with Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack (about 21 min.) to offer. Praiseworthy - since unfortunately no longer a matter of course - is that there are optional German subtitles to the interview. Good!

Conclusion: "My Hours with Leo" is an amusing, but also thought-provoking film that gives its two main characters a lot of space to develop. Great acting and clever writing - this is how cinema reduced to the essentials is great fun. The DVD is technically well done and has a bonus interview on board that is well worth watching. All in all, a very clear case of: Absolutely recommendable!

Source: Https://www.wildbunch-germany.de/movie/meine-stunden-mit-leo