Todd Haynes and Julianne Moore have beenthe Ingmar Bergmanand Liv Ullman of American cinema the past few decades — a special artistic collaboration between a director who explores the lives of women better than nearly any other man today, and an actor who manifests these visions in startling ways. From their start with 1995’sSafethroughFar From Heaven, I’m Not There, andWonderstruck, the pair have brought out the best in each other time and time again. They excavate beautiful, melancholic meaning from the void of our collective condition yet again with a new Netflix film,May December, and Natalie Portman and Charles Melton join them.
May Decemberis a multilayered drama about the nature of truth and tabloids, artifice and acting. It follows Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a meticulous and perhaps manipulative actor who is playing the lead in atrue crime kind of biopicbased on a salacious tabloid story (a story which, in Samy Burch’s script forMay December,is itself broadly inspired by the case of Mary Kay Letourneau). Elizabeth travels to a small community on Tybee Island, near Savannah, Georgia, to meet and study the woman her character is based on, Gracie (Julianne Moore).
Elizabeth ingratiates herself into the seemingly idyllic but complicated lives of Gracie, her husband Joe (Charles Melton), and their children ahead of their graduation ceremony. Gracie has three other children from an earlier marriage, one which ended when Gracie met and fell in love with Joe — when he was 12 years old. Yes,May Decemberhurls some curveballs at the audience, and it honestly may be better to simply go in blind and trust the talent in front of and behind the camera. Check out our review after you do.
The Truth Behind a Tabloid in May December
May December
May Decemberis quite something. From its narrative to its dialogue and tone, the film is structurally designed to catch you off guard, make you uncomfortable, watch in disbelief. It’s a provocation, but an oddly peaceful and pleasant one with a good deal of wit. The film’s opening accomplishes this almost immediately, combining hazy sunlight and close-up photography of leaves and insects with the stirring, decidedly melodramatic score by Marcelo Zarvos. The music can be jarring, and seems to lean into the idea of tabloid sensationalism, somethingMay Decemberis very much about. It’s like The National Enquirer, directed by Douglas Sirk or Nicholas Ray.
Elizabeth arrives in town, quasi-crashing a barbecue at Gracie’s house, and feasts upon the gorgeous scenery, laughing children, friendly neighbors, and all-around summery sensation. To Elizabeth, it seems too… nice. At least for a woman who had sex with a pre-teen, went to prison for it, and gave birth while in prison. And at least for the victim of that rape, Joe, who ends up marrying his abuser and having more children with her once she’s out of prison. Elizabeth wants to know Gracie so that she can inhabit her for the film. She wants the truth, but the truth’s elastic.
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May Decemberis extremely careful with how it presents this story. While the music may be melodramatic, the script avoids anything obvious at all. It’s hard to recall if words like “rape,” “abuser,” “pedophilia,” or anything similar were even used. Everyone in town knows what happened between Gracie and Joe, and it was roughly two decades prior to when May December is set. The fact of the matter lingers like the epilogue of a bad joke.
Joe is perhaps the epitomized locus of this unsettling reality. Just as his residence is truly gorgeous and warm despite housing these people and their past, Joe himself is very sweet and almost pure in a way, almost golden. But then you realize — maybe that’s because he’s still a boy, his development arrested in time, still viewing the older woman who took advantage of him as his one true love. But he’s a man now. Does that no longer make him a victim?
Todd Haynes Studies Women and Performative Behavior
May Decembernever gets didactic or tells you how to think; Haynes lets the characters think for themselves and doesn’t judge them. Instead, the film constructs a simple, perfect set-up which leads to countless questions (ethically, artistically, legally, metaphysically). Ultimately, Elizabeth’s drive is to understand Gracie, even if that means seriously disrupting the surface of her life (whether that surface is facade or fact). It’s the quest the audience goes on by proxy, and your satisfaction with the end result may depend on how much sanctity you give to the notion of objective truth.
This might be the best film about acting since 2014’sActress, thanks to the sharp script but, above all, the masterful performances.Director Todd Haynesobviously draws greatly from the aforementioned Ingmar Bergman here, using the creepy symbiotic relationship between two women inPersona, the extended love letter-reading scene fromWinter Light, and even the themes of mental illness and exploitation in art fromThrough a Glass Darkly. It all works wonderfully here; like Bergman, Haynes is very interested in the interiorlives of smart women, the performative nature of social functions and relationships, and the positives and negatives of art.
Exclusive: Natalie Portman & Julianne Moore Get Candid About Acting, Todd Haynes, and May December
Portman and Moore speak with us about their masterful and mysterious Netflix film, May December.
Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton
Portman and Moore freeze time when they’re together; every gesture, every glance, every word is layered with meaning, and one can watchMay Decembermultiple times and find new nuances to each performance. It brings to mind a film likeSleuth, which wasn’t a comedy, but simply watching two legends like Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine naturally brings a smile to one’s face. It’s the same here. Portman’s presumptuous, almost cynical character thinks she can shatter the memory palace of Moore’s fragile suburban Gracie, but Gracie proves to be an enigma. Tabloids only capture drama in black and white (quite literally); the reality beneath people and their stories are always more complicated.
Charles Melton is downright revelatory. As Joe, theRiverdaleandSecret Headquartersstar gives one of those performances that seem to prove the existence of destiny. The buff and handsome Melton practically shrinks himself emotionally into a boy who bears heavy burdens. His relationship with Moore’s Gracie is one of the most haunting romances in film history, made all the more unnerving by the fact thateven calling it a ‘romance’ seems uncomfortable. There’s a sad beauty in it too, though, a portrait of broken people holding each other in place so that the pieces don’t fall apart.
In short,May Decemberis an acting masterclass that leaves discomforting questions in its wake, about abuse, love, consent, sensationalism, manipulation, and the terrible teasing of truth.May Decemberis in select theaters Nov. 17, before coming to Netflix Dec. 1 in the US and Canada. You can watch the trailer below and find the link to stream the film when it’s on Netflix:
