Year: 2023
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Director: Todd Haynes
Screenwriter: Samy Burch
Based on the story by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik
Music: Marcelo Zarvos
Cinematography: Christopher Blauvelt
Editor: Affonso Gonçalves
Cast:
Natalie Portman
Julianne Moore
Charles Melton
Gabriel Chung
Elizabeth Yu
Piper Curda
Cory Michael Smith
D.W. Moffett
Charles Green
Andrea Frankel
Lawrence Arancio
Kelvin Han Yee
Drew Scheid
Rating: 8.2/10
Anyone equipped with a sensible moral compass can suss from the stigmatized premise of Todd Haynes’s MAY DECEMBER that, in a sexual relationship between an adult and a minor, the guilty party is always and rightfully the former, there is no grey area. So as audience, we are as complicit as the film’s protagonist Elizabeth Berry (Portman), who insinuates her way into the life of Gracie Atherton-Yoo and Joe Yoo (Moore and Melton), a married couple with 3 children under their belt, but the catch is, 23 years ago, when they fell in love, she was 36 and he was only 13.
Loosely based on the true story of Mary Kay Letourneau (1962-2020) and Vili Fualaau (1983-), MAY DECEMBER, the title is self-evident of its cradle-snatching signification, doesn’t intend to pass judgment, Gracie is a sex offender and has served her time in prison for her crime, it is a plain fact. What really intrigues us is how the film shreds the surface of Gracie and Joe’s current conjugal bliss and probex into what makes them stick together, is it really “love with a capital L” as both emphatically proclaim? Therefore, acting as audience’s proxy, Elizabeth, in the name of shadowing Gracie to portray her in an independent film, is the sleuth who would try almost anything to understand her character, and if she is lucky, she might even solve the puzzle.
However, Elizabeth isn’t exactly a virtuous heroine one gladly roots for, her personal life is a mess (audience can implicitly get wise that she conducts an extramarital affair with the film’s director despite of her engagement). Obsessed with the tabooed and tabloid affair, she snoops around behind the couple’s back, her incremental imitation of Gracie goes widely off the charts, not that she has the urge to simulate pleasure in the exact place where Gracie and Joe were caught 23 years ago, later, she will almost tactlessly seduce Joe (she has chronic asthma but doesn’t know how to use the mouthpiece?) just to experience what Gracie has been carnally experiencing. Perching on the moral high ground with the 411 she obtains from Georgie (Smith), Gracie’s eldest son from her previous marriage, Elizabeth seems to crack the case eventually, only to have her holier-than-thou smugness splintered to the smithereens by Gracie’s faux-throwaway valediction “insecure people are very dangerous, but I am secure”. Portman fits like a glove to impersonate a character composed of non-aggressive artifice, shady morality and superficial glamour (she is a serious TV actress). Her constant forced smile is rather telling of Elizabeth’s own conceit and insincerity. Her 4-minute monologue scene, spelling out Gracie’s grooming tactics with such dainty affectation, is one of her best screen output to date.
As for Haynes’s long-time muse Moore, Gracie grants her another daring tour de force, whose beguiling femininity, faux-naivety (“the princess syndrome” where she tearfully seeks comfort from Joe after the canceled cake orders), cold calculation (throwing barbs at Elizabeth to put her at her place) and dexterous manipulation (back-handedly body-shaming her daughter on choosing a gown for her high school graduation) are of sharp precision and chilling fascination in equal measure. Moore doesn’t fall back on sympathy to temper Gracie’s perversion, she goes in full career. Gracie is an unregenerate culprit, like her spirit animal, she is as cunning, dangerous and evasive as a fox. Her mentality shall be the one thought-provoking takeaway out of the entire film, for instance, the toll of her crime seems latent, all their three children seem normal outwardly, only startlingly manifests in the case of Georgie, and Smith beadily lacerates that brutal wound with a wacky energy that makes a big splash in his short stint, and en passant, dinging the sought-after position of music supervisor for a movie and the quid-pro-quo transaction between a biographical film and its real-life subjects.
Sandwiched between two wily women, Melton’s Joe is the one who is designated as the redeeming feature for whom audience can rally support. His victimology is particularly affecting because Melton is so haltingly excellent in playing a 36-year-old, development-arrested man-child. Eternally in the thrall of Gracie’s beck and call, Joe has never outgrown his teen age, only now, the sudden realization of being an empty nester galvanizes him to question what he has lost all these year and what actually happened at then. Melton, gaining considerable weight to shape his daddy-bod, holds his own against two much more seasoned and formidable players, a star is born is not an overstatement, and the metaphor of a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly is spot-on.
Consolidated by Samy Burch’s smart, acerbic and insightful script, Haynes the director also expertly struts his stuff with commendable sophistication and flair, like the two-shots of Elizabeth and Gracie, his use of mirrors to mediate the process of outward posturing and imitation between these two characters, their tacit competition to one-up(wo)manship. Marcelo Zarvos’ score for the film is an adaptation and re-orchestration of Michel Legrand’s music for Joseph Losey’s THE GO-BETWEEN (1971), an innovative way of revitalization and repurposing existent materials, it gets you hooked every time. So, it is to Yours Truly’s utter delight to report, MAY DECEMBER very much lives up to its hypes and is a perspicacious dramaturgy tackling a prickly, controversial matter with intellect and felicity of dramatization, Haynes’s gloves are completely off.
referential entries: Todd Haynes FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002, 9.2/10), SAFE (1995, 8.4/10); Joseph Losey’s THE GO-BETWEEN (1971, 7.0/10).
Cinema Omnivore 