A warning of sorts: May/December is no picnic to sit through. No worries. If you happen to be a fan of absorbing, brazen filmmaking that is unafraid to tackle prickly moral ambiguity, while providing two of the finest lead performances in recent years, this new Todd Haynes gem is for you.
The film uses the real life story of Mary Kay Letourneau, a 36-year-old teacher who went to jail for her affair with seventh grader Vili Fualaao, only to bear his child in jail and marry him upon her release. What Haynes (the brilliant Carol, I’m Not There, The Velvet Underground) conjures up, along with screenwriter Samy Burch (she’s a first-timer), is a premise where TV actress Elizabeth (Oscar winner Natalie Portman) injects herself into the family of now long-married Gracie (Oscar winner Julianne Moore) and Joe (an effective Charles Melton, TV’s Riverdale) and their three teenage children. She imbeds herself in order to portray Gracie in a movie, the creation of which the family will have differing opinions.
Watching the two actresses interact is fascinating. It’s also often thorny and twisted, which only heightens the allure. Haynes, ever the stylist, loves shooting their side-by-side reflections discoursing in mirrors as their duel of wits ensues. Before we know it we’re looking at Gracie‘s serious lack of self-reflection, let alone the presence of anything resembling guilt.
Elizabeth’s method acting, which she seems to be learning on the fly, turns up a higher and higher notch until she eventually is even mimicking Elizabeth’s lisp. Elizabeth’s reaching out to Gracie’s former husband and their two children stirs up the intensity but with each added layer it becomes more and more possible that Gracie isn’t the only one guilty of self-deception.
Without giving up spoilers, I’ll also provide another warning of sorts: Haynes isn’t interested in providing the viewer with a roadmap. You’ll need to put on your adult shoes and be willing to do some of the work picking the film apart. Don’t look for a pat ending or any particular moral lesson that is able to stand up any firmer than alternate possibilities.
If the film does contain a character resembling a moral compass, can it be Joe? Did Gracie rob his childhood from under him? Is Elizabeth’s stirring the beehive bringing up possible long-suppressed resentments? In a movie where the two lead characters provoke a lot of squirming, Joe, from when we first lay eyes on him, gives rise to a sense that beneath his preternatural calm lurks something entirely different. Just when it seems the unease in watching Gracie and Elizabeth battle each other can be offset by shifting our gaze to the film’s peripheral characters in the hope of their providing an equilibrium, here comes Joe to make us even more unsettled.
Haynes also explores the question of exploitation and our society’s obsession not only with tabloid stories but tabloid stories that, however sensational, ultimately are designed not to offend. Borrowing the music theme from Michel Legrand’s score for the 1971 film The Go-Between, Haynes punctuates stirring musical surges throughout in order to lend melodramatic irony throughout the queasy proceedings. It’s as if Haynes feels the need to break up all the biting solemnity with a mocking lightheartedness that is no gimmick, but rather adds an additional dimension.
Just how good is the acting? Moore, who has long worked with Haynes, gradually embodies what first seems like a simple character with a complexity that freakishly sneaks up on the viewer—until before we know it she’s a full blown enigma. As is very often the case with Moore, she makes what must have been an arduous role look easy.
And Portman? Well Portman just went to the top my Best Actress of The Year list. She is at her strongest here when Elizabeth employs a brittle veneer that simultaneously struggles with and revels in the challenges brought by each new revelation she encounters with Gracie and the rest of her family. While she and Gracie’s lawyer are having lunch at a restaurant, the camera cuts to a scruffy singer and his band performing a bizarre version of a pulpy standard. The spiky-haired frontman stops the song in mid-performance, turns and tosses his drink in his drummer’s face. He then alarmingly runs over to Elizabeth’s table, smirkingly revealing himself to be Gracie’s son from her previous marriage. The lawyer recoils and starts asking for the check. Elizabeth, who by now is becoming more comfortable with not being able to look away from this bizarre family, begs to stay.
Elizabeth’s direct camera reading of a letter late in the film brings to fruition a realization of method acting that is unrestrained to the point of making Daniel Day Lewis look like a Bowery Boy. Her character, as well as Gracie and Joe, will long stick with you after this deranged and beautiful film is over.
May/December is streaming on Netflix.
Burch and Melton won prestigious NewYork Film Critics Circle Best of the Year awards for, respectively, screenwriting and best supporting actor.