Back in the 90s, one of the biggest scandals that I can vividly remember being plastered all over TV screens was the arrest of 32-year-old teacher Mary Kay Letourneau when it was discovered she initiated a sexual relationship with 12-year-old Villi Fualaau...a relationship that would result in two children over time, both born while Letourneau was incarcerated.
Perhaps the craziest part of the story is that following Letourneau's eventual release from prison, she married the now-legal Fualaau (who was 21) in 2005...and they remained married until a separation in 2019 not long before Letourneau succumbed to colorectal cancer in 2020.
The Letourneau scandal got a lot of trashy TV movie treatments, memorably one with the underrated Penelope Ann Miller playing Letourneau...and we've gotten movies like Notes on a Scandal which featured a woman of a certain age having a sexual relationship with a minor.
That brings me to May December, a film which has a similar kind of setup to that scandal but gives it a little bit of a spin.
Set in 2015, May December follows an actress named Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) who travels to Savannah, Georgia to meet Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore) and her husband Joe Yoo (Charles Melton).
Elizabeth is set to play Gracie in a movie that will tell the story of how she was discovered in the stock room of a pet store having sex with the 13-year-old Joe.
However, much like the Letourneau/Fualaau ordeal, Gracie and Joe are married and have been together for 24 years. Their life consists of living in a relatively nice beach house with three children: a 19-year daughter and 17-year-old twins who are set to graduate high school.
Elizabeth arrives and, not surprisingly, there is tension about her presence as one might expect with this famous star coming into their community and stirring the pot about a scandal that is well into the past.
I wish I could remember where I read this comment as it wasn't that long ago, but there is a point to be made that telling this story from the point of view of an actress isn't necessarily needed; why not just create a story around this very notorious couple and the family they have built?
The actress angle did provide some interesting moments, and as the film was within its first hour, I felt it was a smart concept...and considering the film was directed by Todd Haynes, I came in expecting something that would be a glorious experience.
If I am being completely honest, I would place May December into a group of films that manage to get high praise in a given year but somehow leave me cold. As of this exact writing, May December isn't exactly any kind of lock for a Best Picture nomination, but there is a lot of buzz for its acting and Screenplay. In fact, the screenplay (written by Samy Burch) and Charles Melton both won at the New York Film Critics' Circle Awards.
When dealing with a topic like a relationship that began when one of them was a minor, you begin to flirt heavily with the product becoming incredibly pulpy.
The reason something like Lolita worked so well was how Nabokov handled the psychology of Humbert Humbert...not to mention how well he could craft written text.
The sad truth is that May December is about as pulpy as orange juice straight from a juicer...and it is about as cliché ridden as the analogy I just made. Oh goody.
Clichés, party of five, your table is ready!
Throughout the last several months, May December has felt a bit like a mysterious film. Few had seen it, but it got a lot of praise, especially after appearing in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The basic plot points were given: an actress would be studying a woman who was married to the person she seduced when he was a teenager.
And it was directed by Todd Haynes and starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore...and some guy that was on Riverdale.
The promise was there as it is a rather intriguing and complex topic...potentially at least.
I found that May December took the easy way out and, in the process, made it difficult to care about any of these people in any way aside from Melton's Joe...but more on him later.
I am not saying I am an intellectual by any means or that I am some kind of insightful genius, but I feel as if May December was trying so hard to act like it was being incredibly deep and smart and that it often came across as pretentious as it was pulpy.
This is only further complicated by, of all things, it's musical score which is credited to Brazilian composer Marcelo Zarvos.
As I watched the film, I had a sense that I heard the music before, and I was right. It turns out the music was a new arrangement/orchestration of Michel Legrand's work on The Go-Between, a 1971 film that was written by Harold Pinter, a writer who was brilliant at making pulpy concepts a lot more subtle and deeper than may have been let on by others.
However, that film was a sweeping British period drama set in the early 20th century...therefore, it was grand in scope and style...and yet, even the music for that film felt more controlled than it did here.
There were certain moments where the main theme music would be played, and I honestly started to chuckle. It truly makes you realize how much a musical score is important to a film, because in just a couple of instances within the film's first hour, I was pulled out of certain moments where I was like "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS THIS MUSIC?!"
It might be an exaggeration, but I almost feel like it would be as if I were at work and I said to one of my colleagues, "I have a headache and I am going to go sit down for a minute" and then it was punctuated by Liberace sitting down at a piano to play a dark and fairly aggressive concerto. You almost expect that in one scene it will turn into an organ and that perhaps this was actually a film written by Agnes Nixon or Ann Marcus....actually wait...those writers actually had a little more integrity with their plots even when writing, of all things, many daytime dramas throughout the 60s-80s.
It is actually any wonder that I ended up greatly appreciating the main trio of actors in this, because they managed to somehow make it bearable.
Natalie Portman as Elizabeth is presented as your typical actress who is trying to appear to seem very insightful...but she is also presented as an actress who might actually be a sociopath. Granted, this isn't to say their aren't actresses out there who have sociopathic tendencies...look at Lea Michele...but she seems to have a lot of similar destructive issues to that of Moore's Gracie. We see one scene where Elizabeth is on the phone with her film's director, and it is implied that she is preying upon him sexually.
This is also not unheard of. In fact, it made me think of how Wim Wenders started sleeping with Nastassja Kinski during the filming of Paris, Texas. He actually developed feelings for her, but she brushed it off as having sex with all her directors...and perhaps that was also her own trauma for having been one of Roman Polanski's first conquests after he fled the US for France.
As expected, Elizabeth does seduce Joe and it plays into her both trying to see how it feels to have sex with him for the role, but she also seems to want to act like she is morally superior. She even tells him that he has authority to make choices for himself and that he shouldn't feel attached to Gracie.
Her motives seem very unclear and while that could play as a very fascinating and complex character for someone to tackle, it just doesn't come off as strong here; it simply lacks any real kind of finesse.
With Gracie, there is speculation by her eldest son Georgie from her previous marriage that she was repeatedly raped by her older brothers from the time she was 12 years old...and you find yourself kind of going "Really? They are really going for as close to the textbook as they can"...and then at the end, Gracie tells Elizabeth this story is a lie and says "Insecure people are the most dangerous" in regard to Georgie...and this is punctuated by Elizabeth shuttering as if she just got told some very chilling news and the music swells up yet again.
And through it all, there is Charles Melton ("some guy from Riverdale") as Joe.
Considering he was the minor; he is the one that many view as being "the victim". And yes, he WAS a minor and despite the fact that he may have been ready and willing, it really was up to Gracie to take charge. They also aim right for the "pedophile logic" with Gracie claiming that Joe seduced her...but Joe, regardless of the victim argument, is the one character in the film I felt something for.
As written, he is a very quiet and stoic figure, but Melton gives him a warmth.
He also quite frankly steals the movie from Moore and Portman in some ways because his work is often just so effortless. I do think he will get an Oscar nomination for this performance and despite the erratic quality of the film, I think good acting should always be recognized.
Like I said, this is a guy who was known for being on freaking Riverdale. It is kind of an epic narrative to go off of and show that you can find people with great acting skills in projects that may not seem like the most likely place. His sweet vulnerability mixed with what Elizabeth calls "a quiet confidence" is so wonderfully pitched, and I would say is the film's biggest success story.
I still think Moore and Portman do as good as they can do with the material they were given, and it is no surprise since both of them tend to excel at any role they tackle.
Portman gets a great direct-to-camera monologue where she recites a personal note that Gracie wrote to Joe following the first time they had sex, and it does show off how talented Portman is. I feel like every year, online film forums love to say how a certain performer is doing their best work and I have read people say this of Portman. I still think she was far better in Black Swan and Jackie, but she was still quite good here. Considering how much of a bloodbath Best Actress is this year, I sort of suspect Portman will have an uphill battle to get nominated and I also suspect she wouldn't make my personal lineup in the end.
Moore gets a couple of strong moments as we see the mental anguish she often puts herself through, and she feels very believable in terms of the chemistry with Melton. Her character's voice is rather delicate at times, very wispy and with a slight lisp, which gives her a feeling of innocence and naivety. She even says to Elizabeth at one point while they stare into a mirror together that she is, indeed, a naive woman.
And speaking of them staring into the mirror, I get the sense that these scenes were structured to be the film's "iconic" centerpieces in terms of staging. The use of mirrors/blocking and the topic of obsession with an actress observing this other woman and her husband screams the work of Ingmar Bergman.
In fact, Todd Haynes even said that Bergman's films Winter Light and especially Persona were huge influences on him. While watching it, you can clearly tell he is trying to emulate Persona which is about a nurse who tends to an actress who has stopped speaking and soon loses any kind of grasp on reality as she becomes obsessed with her patient.
Bergman was a master at these two-handers, particularly with women...and I say that rather modestly as I absolutely adore Bergman and think he was one of the best, if not the best, filmmakers to have ever lived.
Invoking the spirit of Ingmar Bergman can be a touchy area for me...I mean...if you want to say that your television show is inspired by Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage (I am looking at you Knots Landing) then maybe the writers should try to aspire to a higher standard...or better yet, maybe not try to say they want to be like Bergman.
I truly did not like the script to May December. It felt like it was trying way too hard while also being as basic with the plot as it could have. Frankly, it felt as heavy-handed as some of the material I tried to write back in high school when I was hoping to be a playwright.
I mean...this is a film in which we have a character, Joe, who is rearing monarch butterflies as a hobby. Conveniently, near the film's end, one of them emerges from its cocoon and Joe sets it free.
WOW! SYMBOLISM! I have never seen that kind of metaphor before. EVER! HOW TOUCHING!
So yeah...May December is currently streaming on Netflix. Perhaps I am in something of a minority here, and I WILL say that the film is buoyed up by some rather strong acting.
Beyond that, I hope you like pulp!
5/10
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