May December is 2023 dramedy following a TV star who makes her way to Savannah, Georgia to study the subject of who she is starring as.
As most people know, to truly deliver an outstanding performance as a thespian, you can’t do it halfway and you really have to know your subject. Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) is a famous TV actress who is dedicated to her craft, and her latest vehicle will have her starring as Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore). Who? Gracie was once the subject of intense scrutiny when her relationship to Joe Yoo (Charles Melton) went national; she was a thirty-something teacher who had an affair which turned into a full-on relationship with Joe, who was only a seventh grader at the time. While in prison, Gracie and Joe’s relationship only strengthened and 20 years later, they’re married with late teens and college-aged offspring, living in Savannah, Georgia in an existence that’s not quite quiet, but accepted by people.
Elizabeth descends into Savannah hoping to understand more of Gracie from Gracie herself and the people around her through research. At first, Gracie does acquiesce to Elizabeth’s inquisitiveness, but slowly becomes more frigid as the actress uncovers more about her life pre-Joe and post-Joe.
May December. Where to begin? Inspired by the real life romance and tabloid tumult of adult Mary Kay Letourneau and her one-time underage student Vili Fualaau, there’s a lot bubbling under the surface across many directions that lends itself to at least one additional rewatch.
Todd Haynes directs this eccentric oddity, and he does so in a way that sort of resembles Lifetime features with a smidge of self-awareness. This is a film that makes no concessions on its subject matter, and its subject matter is “shock schlock;” still so unbelievable to fathom even with the sad realization that this teacher/student dynamic has happened before with steady frequency. Nevertheless, there’s a sleepy surrealism Haynes uses to analyze his two lead subjects, particularly anytime when his lead actresses are conversing to each other with mirrors in the same frame, or when Elizabeth looks directly into the camera as she’s delivering her lines, or even when viewing demo reels in search of her future co-star playing Joe.
May December can’t be cleanly tagged to one genre. The most accurate description is probably a psychological character(ish) study with flourishes of dark humor (the riffs from composer Marcelo Zarvos make it clear not everything is meant to be taken seriously), but it also has parts of an erotic thriller, a family drama, and a pure meta-cinema movie. It all coalesces enough, but the tonal shifts can be abrupt. Co-writers Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik are analyzing a lot of ideas; lost innocence, the right to privacy for all no matter the offense, the depth and breadth of trauma, the performance line between meticulous and manic, and the media’s never-ending obsession with keeping salacious stories going, to name a few. You can argue their script could have leaned more into probing the psyches of Gracie and Joe by providing more information post-incident (i.e. Gracie’s imprisonment) but the movie keeps them, particularly Gracie, at arm’s length.
At times, it feels like Portman and Moore are all performing in a different film, yet it sort of comes off as intentional. Portman plays dangerous phenomenally well, a performer (or is she?) using her charm to conceal her chameleon colors as someone who is willing to sacrifice collateral damage in the name of craft. On the other side of the dangerous coin is Moore as Gracie, rarely exploding but often seething with passive-aggressive disdain and deflection. Does she know what she’s doing, or has she convinced herself that she’s in the right?
Both are worthy of awards chatter, but the feature belongs to Melton. As Joe, he has the audience’s heart as the one main entity who is without real fault, and it becomes saddening to see him attempt to compute his life in real time, missing the intellectual tools and life experiences to do so effectively, not just for himself, but for his kids. There’s an innocence and blankness to Melton, and this role will almost surely be a catalyst to more and more.
Still not a hundred percent sure what to make of May December, or how I definitively feel about it. But I think the mere fact that I’m still trying to work through exact feelings is—in this case—a good thing for what the movie is going for. Like the seasonal months in its title, May December operates within different degrees and is hot, cold, wet, dry, and everything in between.