May December (2023)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Generation Scrap

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

In their fifth film together, director Todd Haynes and performer Julianne Moore return to the ground they tread upon with the masterful Safe (1995), telling a story of women with something terribly wrong simmering just under the surface. May December is based loosely on the explosive 1990s tabloid story of Mary Kay Letourneau, who, at age 34, began a sexual relationship with her student, 12-year-old Vili Fualaau. Letourneau was arrested for second-degree rape and imprisoned, but gave birth to a child, and when released, resumed the relationship, which resulted in marriage and a second child.

Here, Moore plays Gracie Atherton-Yoo, in her fifties, and happily married to Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), who is 36. It has been more than two decades since their scandal, but they still occasionally get a rebuke from some hateful troll (like a package filled with excrement). Their first child has gone off to college, and their youngest, twins, are about to graduate high school. Actor Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), marginally famous for a TV show called Norah's Ark, has been cast in an indie film about Gracie and Joe, and Gracie has agreed to let Elizabeth hang out with the family to study and learn.

Gracie and Elizabeth develop a subtly antagonistic relationship. Elizabeth may be more invested in her own rewards than in getting to know the family, but Gracie can smell the deception and does not suffer fools. Yet Gracie is also an expert at denial. Then, Elizabeth realizes that she and Joe are both 36 (which also happens to be the age that Gracie was when she and Joe first consummated their relationship). So she begins to pursue that unexpected little wrinkle as well, or is it Joe that pursues first?

It's essentially a power play between the trio. While we initially see Gracie and Joe in a loving embrace, she actually infantilizes him, scolding him for taking another beer, and ordering him to get his "bugs" out of the living room. (In some of the film's tenderer moments, we see Joe gathering butterfly eggs and hatching them in a safe environment before setting them free.) Meanwhile, as Elizabeth interviews Gracie, she's met with Gracie's sweet-faced barbs.

This is not to say that May December is some kind of soap opera, in which vindictive characters backstab each other for pleasure. Rather, the characters seem to be organically searching for connection, and their foibles just naturally get in the way. They struggle and scramble along, every minute, groping for purchase, but sometimes succumbing to doubt or hubris or vanity. When Gracie gets perturbed, she reveals a slight lisp that she has undoubtedly spent years trying to tame. Elizabeth picks up on it, and, in the final moments, incorporates it into her performance.

When the film becomes even more interesting is when the two women seem to meld, with Elizabeth becoming a kind of doppelganger to Gracie, a shadow at important family events, and Gracie becoming something of a performer, putting on a show for Elizabeth. (Mirrors are important here.) And, of course, they each have their own ways of viewing Joe. Again, this is not literal. Haynes has one of the quietest touches in cinema today, allowing scenes to build organically, to breathe, and characters slowly bloom, or hatch, like a butterfly.

There are so many brilliant touches to May December, from Elizabeth's interviews with secondary players in the scandal, including the owner of the pet shop where the relationship first bloomed (she tries to locate the space in which they first made love, and imagines the ecstasy), to a scene of Joe smoking pot for the first time with his teen son, and breaking down into a torrent of emotional honesty. It's a movie with many layers, spanning generations and motivations, that bears thinking about and certainly re-watching.