May December is one of the first films in a while that I have walked into knowing nothing but the stars on the posters. I didn’t know anything about the story and was refreshed to unravel the plot as it played out rather than waiting for its reveal after seeing it in the trailers. That being said, I’m about to emulate the marketing materials by telling the story and also setting expectations by conveying my thoughts, whoops.
The story takes place in 2015, based loosely on the story of Mary Kay Letourneau, an American school teacher who went to prison after pleading guilty to engaging in sexual misconduct with a young student.
In this film, the Mary Kay Letourneau is Gracie who also went to jail for these offences after meeting her now husband Joe, at the age of thirteen when he got a job at the pet store she also worked at. We join them twenty years on, when Joe is around the age that Gracie was when they first met, at a turning point in their marriage, where their youngest kids are heading off to college. Not only is this milestone bringing up conversations of “what’s next”, but the arrival of Elizabeth, a Hollywood actress coming to study Gracie in order to portray her in a biopic of her life, also shakes up the everyday, leading to questions in their marriage and the implications of Gracie’s abuse.
Natalie Portman brings along with her uncanny ability to play a fake humble actress who’s “all about the craft”. She digs into Gracie’s life, unearthing deeply suppressed conversations through her almost unphased research. The family invite her into their lives, bringing her to work, eating meals with her and even inviting her to the graduation party. Through this research she also looks for a counterpart Joe to her Gracie and reports back to her agent in Hollywood about what she’s learning.
Juliane Moore has such an endearing aura about her, which makes it all the more uncomfortable when she is playing a person whose actions have essentially ruined the lives of those around her. She lives her day to day, unbothered in her perfect house, with her perfect kids and perfect husband, what could be so wrong about that?..
The setting is suburbia, with quaint cafes, lakeside houses and a sense of community in the few characters you do meet outside of the family. Most evident by the pet store owner’s description of Gracie’s initial offer to help out at the store. This inherent closeness to the community is something you would only really find in these middle America commuter towns. The setting works so perfectly for the story, you get the closed off and self assured nature of the townsfolk with the big outsider from Hollywood coming in to observe their ways of living and being the talk of the town, minutes after her arrival.
This film lives in a very moral grey area, with neither Gracie or Elizabeth being wholly good people. Gracie’s flaws are quite obvious, with her actual crimes and complete lack of remorse or even understanding of wrong doings in this situation. She has an unabashed sense of self and unwavering confidence in her decisions from the get go of this film, brushing off negativity in the situation with casual remarks or diversions in conversation. Elizabeth quietly manipulates the people around her, always feeling like she has a layer of fakeness whenever we see her around others. Her flow of conversations feel very PR trained and minimal in ways that make casual conversation seem pleasant but never deeper. She studies a character who has unapologetically stripped someone of their childhood with almost no pause for reflection. Her mind is solely on the film’s creation, having a separation for the real life story at play.
The story living in this icky aura translates through the visuals and sounds of the film, seeping into every frame of the creation. The camera opts for quite obscure and off-putting angles to tell the story, dirtying the frame with a lot of foreground clutter or shrinking the focal length down to give a tiny space for these characters to live in. There is a claustrophobia in the presentation, an intimate awkwardness that the film lingers on for the entire runtime.
This blends so perfectly with the music which is intermittent but aggressive and simple. I like to describe the piano with “plink” when discussing its use to soothe and immerse the viewer. This piano plunked on screen, forceful presses on the keys boomed out of the speakers in moments of uncomfortability, heightening them and making me want to sit further back in the theatre.
Unlike the score, the sound was very present and very meticulous in its destruction of classical mixing techniques. The speakers ripped with screams, laughs and coughs in moments to almost evoke a horror aspect to the film. They also play with dialogue levels, making you almost physically lean into the film to get more into the story.
The film does its job in creating a deep feeling of uncomfort as you watch and some that I actually took out of the screening with me. There is so much effort placed into creating an atmosphere without much of a sacrifice of a well told and interesting story and creative flair with the technical side of things.
“May December” is not only the title for this film, but is a real term in which to describe a relationship where there is a considerable age gap between partners. I think this film having the age gap be one between an older woman and young boy is interesting, with this dynamic not being paid attention to as much in society as problematic. I wouldn't say it’s widely celebrated, but oftentimes is not seen as damaging because of the ways young boys will act or talk about older women. It’s smart to have written it this way, not having such a black and white moral line as we would if this were to be an older man with a young girl. Giving those in the audience who may share this opinion, a bit of pause to realise the gravity of the situation, regardless of gender.
The film also brings up a lot of questions on the media we create and the glorification of heinous acts that people commit, we just watch them like they’re nothing on the big screen. We’re forced to look at this content here and analyse the victims around these real portrayals. How the creation of this media doesn’t condemn, it capitalises off a media frenzy to fill the pockets of the already rich. There is certainly an argument to be made for these types of films to be made, raising awareness for these things and showcasing them in the light they deserve to be shown in, but usually those types of tales are too dark for the general audiences, so won’t be bought, leading to vapid retellings of tragic and deep stories that aren’t given the justice they deserve. I don’t have faith that these types of films will stop anytime soon, even with outrage growing whenever exploitative films or media arise. The numbers talk louder than criticism in most of these cases, and unfortunately, will continue to for some time.
Anyway, TLDR: good film, recommend!
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