A haunting domestic drama with fantastically disturbing performances, May December was a great watch from start to finish. The film is based loosely on the prominent 90’s news story about Mary Kay Letourneau, a woman convicted of sexual abuse of her student and, later, husband and father of her children. The film explores a similar relationship between the fictionalised counterparts to the real life story, with Julianne Moore playing Gracie, the convicted abuser, and Charles Melton as Charlie Atherton-Yoo. The couple is visited twenty-three years after their relationship was discovered by actress Elizabeth, played by Natalie Portman, who finds they are now are married with three grown children, two of whom are about to graduate high school. The film explores the relationships between these characters as they face who they are and who they aspire to become.
Director Todd Haynes creates a chilling air of uncertainty and mistrust through mundane moments and tense sets of dialogue. Long one-shots and intense close-ups allow you to sit in the real discomfort of the film’s subject matter. With surprising but clever dark humour and a moving finale, the film takes you on what really becomes Charlie’s story, though Moore is stunningly creepy as Gracie, and Portman’s performance is reminiscent (though not quite the same) of her Black Swan descent into a twisted alter ego.
Though this is far from an original thought, I wanted to echo a sentiment I saw voiced on social media after the movie was published; the casting of Charles Melton is superb. Not only is Melton fantastic in this movie, especially when he gets a chance to shine in the third act, but as an actor he is a remarkable choice. Not only do Gracie and, later, Elizabeth, hold Charlie in a strange, perpetual state of childhood, while also regarding him as an attractive sexual partner, but as an audience we are encouraged to do the same. Although Melton is in his thirties, we know him in our popular culture from his role as a teenager, on a sexualised show like Riverdale where shirts are off more often than they’re on. Costuming puts Melton in baggy clothes, just slightly too big, and often akin to something a middle-schooler with newly found fashion independence might wear. Altogether, these choices allow Melton to shoulder the burden of capturing Charlie’s unique and disturbing position.
The use of role-swapping in the film is also particularly effective. Elizabeth and Gracie often swap positions, between being the ‘interviewer’ and ‘interviewee’, as well as the perpetrator and the victim. There is an uncertainty of who they are as people, and what they believe in, which is mimicked in their constant inability, or disinterest, in portraying themselves honestly or earnestly.
May December is, though, perhaps heavy-handed in its articulation of the events (e.g. Gracie’s hobby is hunting; she is, quite literally, a predator). The use of ‘ominous piano music’, as my subtitles kept aptly describing it, alongside dialogue practically lifted from quotes from the real-life news story, felt at times like a farcical reenactment. This style that felt somewhat cheap for such a delicate subject, though I can recognise that this was likely an attempt to hone in and remind its audience of the very real existence of this type of predatory abuse.
In total, Haynes’ film is uncomfortable and disconcerting, with a sense of self-awareness, creating a tense and incredibly watchable investigation into these horribly fascinating set of events.
Reel Talk 