May December: A Challenging Watch
May December, the latest film from Carol director Todd Haynes, is a deeply uncomfortable movie. It’s also one of the best movies of 2023.
The film centers around an actress, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), as she shadows a woman she is preparing to play on screen: Julianne Moore’s Gracie, who some 20 years previously became a tabloid mainstay after she left her family, groomed and became impregnated by her son’s 13 year-old friend, was sent to prison, and then married him upon her release. The couple are still married when the film picks up and that boy, Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), is now a nurse in his 30s, spending his days off watching HGTV, raising butterflies, and tending to Gracie’s generally volatile mental state. Gracie and Joe’s baby is now a college student, and they have two more children—twins Mary and Charlie—who are preparing to graduate from high school.
Elizabeth integrates herself more and more into the lives of the Yoos, interviewing those who knew Gracie when she was first “seducing” Joe. Her arrival inadvertently holds up a mirror to Joe and the reality of his life, and Elizabeth slowly becomes both an actor and a bystander in the family’s uncomfortable awakening to the fact that their damages and abnormalities are beyond that of a typical family.
There are so many more things that May December is not versus what it is, and that makes it hard to categorize. It is not quite camp or comedy, not a character study but also not not a character study. It’s unempathetic but not unfeeling. It takes its plot loosely from a real-life case in the 1990s, but isn’t a retelling or a biopic. Although it doesn’t gloss over any of the implications of its story, it isn’t strictly a confrontation or a moral statement. The closest thing we get to a scene of resolution is one where Joe tearfully tells Gracie, “Maybe I was too young to be making those decisions,” only for Gracie to emphatically reply, “You seduced me.”
Moore’s performance leans full-force into both Gracie’s unassailable presumption of her own innocence and her weaponized volatility—veering heavily at times into an almost-but-not-quite camp feeling. Portman feels like she in turn slinks in the shadows and yanks at the spotlight, absorbing not only Gracie’s mannerisms, but also certain elements of her coddled mindset. Melton, rounding out the top-billed trio, is both dejected and hesitant as Joe, perfectly emulating both a boy 20 years younger and a man 20 years older than the character is meant to be. Melton’s presence in the film feels like a grounding agent, reminding you of the gravity of the subject matter in times when it feels like Elizabeth and Gracie’s clashing egos might derail the narrative.
The cinematography is hazy and surreal—almost dreamlike—and the color palette is mostly bleak and monotone. The film’s small-town setting, where everyone knows everyone and hardly anyone ever leaves, adds an almost Twin Peaks-ish edge to scenes where Portman interviews Gracie’s former boss or visits Joe at work. The music is mostly dramatic piano notes underlining scene changes—dark, thumping sounds that evoke a sense of unease. All of these elements give the feeling that something is being purposefully unsaid, as if there is always some leftover mystery that has yet to even be uncovered, much less solved.
I won’t say every element of the film is running at the same power. A few ideas are dropped too quickly or not given enough time to fit. Elizabeth’s character in general seems shell-ish and generic in places, and Portman’s performance could have been better used to add to the film’s multilayered mystique, falling a bit flat compared to her rich, unapologetic scene partners in Moore and Melton. Samy Burch’s screenplay is punchy, but sometimes jarringly silly, and Haynes’ attentive direction has a few odd or missed beats. For the most part, though, the film admirably skates down a thin line of condemning sensationalization of serious topics while still feeding into the world’s love of sensationalized stories.
But May December’s stark portrayal of poisonous narcissism and the breadth of its reach is its greatest asset, and provides endless food for thought. Every technical aspect is tight and perfectly measured. Moore and Melton’s performances are golden, and devastatingly real. It’s not a perfect movie, but overall, it’s a worthwhile watch—if you’re up for a challenge.
