Released this January at Sundance, it looks like the story of a retired 55-year-old widowed teacher who hires a male escort (self-proclaimed “sex therapist”), much younger, ready to experience her first orgasm, but in essence it’s a film about self-acceptance and self-love.
In the words of director Sophie Hyde, “a film about two people meeting and it’s an exploration of intimacy.”
Emma Thompson, who is now 62 years old and has won two Oscars, appears nude for first time on screen and confessed that the character has posed a great challenge to this self-hatred of her own body which, culturally, has been taught to the women.
“Women have been brainwashed into hating our bodies” “Everything that surrounds us reminds us how imperfect we are.”
Emma has stated on several occasions that she is against surgeries that try to hide the natural process of aging and from the Berlinale, in the presentation of the film, has launched a strong speech denouncing the aesthetic pressure to wich women are subjected, who have gone viral.
“… for the Germans nudity may be more normal but the British have to fight puritanism, with the addition that women are required to have unreal bodies.”
Looking in the mirror, naked, without judging. This is the difficult challenge
“I can’t stand in front of a mirror like that. If I stand in front of a mirror, I’ll always pull something in [or do] something […] You try standing in front of the mirror and don’t move. Don’t move. Just accept it”
Speaking of the movie Emma highlights:
“Then what struck me next was the real need for this film, the way we talk about pleasure or shame.”
“If you go to the countryside in the UK, Germany or France, and ask these older women who are sitting on their porches in the sun, ‘How many orgasms have you had?’ you would be surprised by the answers”
“We hope it generates a lot of conversation about intimacy, what it really is, what pleasure is, what shame is, …”
More about sexuality at 3Peusdegat HERE.