When we first meet Gracie and Joe, the married couple who constitute two-thirds of the unstable triangle that makes up Todd Haynes’ May December, they seem to be living an enviable fantasy of domestic bliss. Hosting that most idyllic of pastimes, the backyard barbecue, they share a passing kiss before busying themselves with their duties; Joe (Charles Melton) gets to work on the grill, while Gracie (Julianne Moore) bustles in the kitchen. The weather is sunny, the guests are smiling, and the mood is relaxed. But then Gracie opens the refrigerator door, and the music swells ominously as she makes a cataclysmic discovery: “We don’t have enough hot dogs.”
This is a very funny scene, even as it telegraphs Haynes’ bold, borderline-perverse intentions. With this movie, he is taking the meager lives of three pitiful people and imbuing them with the sweep of classic melodrama. Yet he is also doing the opposite: tackling subject matter that is fundamentally vulgar and investing it with extraordinary grace and sensitivity. May December traffics in illicit affairs and tawdry desires, which it heightens with extravagant skill and unapologetic grandeur. But where its bones are theatrical, its heart is achingly sincere.
Were you a hungry attendee making small talk at that introductory Savannah gathering, you would hopefully not be ill-informed or tactless enough to ask how Joe and Gracie met. The answer to that question forms the basis for the movie’s taut, disquieting narrative. Some 23 years ago, when she was in her mid-thirties, Gracie seduced Joe when he was just 13. This act of abuse resulted in a prison sentence for Gracie, along with a child she bore while behind bars. Yet despite society’s legal and moral condemnation of her actions, Gracie remained unrepentant; after her release, she and Joe re-consummated their (now-lawful) romance, leading to a new set of twins and a marriage that’s lasted ever since.
If you think this series of shocking events sounds like grist for a piece of sin-sational, ripped-from-the-headlines entertainment, you aren’t alone. The third principal character here is Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a popular actor who’s been cast to play Gracie in a TV movie, and who has arrived in Georgia to research her role. In a display of impressive discipline (the screenplay is by Samy Burch), May December never flashes back to its inciting incident; instead it unfolds entirely in the present moment, watching nervously (though not judgmentally) as Elizabeth probes Gracie for information, backstory, and context.
What ensues is a series of conversations that are simultaneously uneventful and explosive. In empirical terms, not a whole lot happens over the course of the movie, which mostly involves Elizabeth tracking down people in Gracie’s orbit—her ex-husband, her son from her first marriage, the employer of the pet store where she and Joe used to sneak into the stockroom—and assimilating the anecdotes they provide into her evolving understanding of Gracie as a person. These exchanges are cordial, even genteel, but they nonetheless simmer with unresolved tension, like sparks running down a fuse. It’s as though Haynes is making an erotic thriller where all of the violence is implied, and all of the sexual desire has been replaced by morbid curiosity.
The director’s staging of this material is somehow both dynamic and restrained. In terms of raw technique, May December is less sumptuous than his prior films like the forbidden love story Carol or the Douglas Sirk valentine Far from Heaven. But he still supplies a tone of feverish intensity, most notably with a magnificently ostentatious score, which Marcelo Zarvos adapted from Michel Legrand’s work for The Go-Between. Haynes also delivers a number of intoxicating mirror shots, a simple but potent metaphor in a movie where the characters are constantly fretting about how they’re being perceived. (Speaking of metaphors, Joe’s hobby of nurturing monarch butterflies throughout their metamorphosis—you might say he grooms them—is perhaps too on the nose.) It’s remarkable how much he can accomplish without dialogue; the shot of Elizabeth silently simulating Gracie’s past exploits in the stockroom is as riveting as it is disturbing, while a scene where Gracie tutors the actor on how she applies her makeup—both of them looking at each other and themselves—is indescribably suspenseful, blending fascination and repulsion.
Which will likely (ahem) mirror your own response. Women tend to be the hero of Haynes’ pictures, so it’s faintly astonishing that May December often plays like a competition to see which of his female leads is more despicable. Gracie is the obvious choice, and for reasons that extend beyond her prior criminality. As a mother, she proves to be judgmental and even cruel; she once got her eldest daughter a scale as a graduation present, and when her younger daughter shops for formal wear, Gracie compliments her for defying “unrealistic beauty standards” (ouch!). She is also needy and volatile, prone to bursting into tears and turning nuisances into crises; whenever Joe invariably consoles her, you half-want him to scream at her instead. For her part (and despite her early comment that they’re “basically the same”), Elizabeth scans as Gracie’s opposite—calculating, watchful, shrewd—but she also appears selfish to the point of ruthlessness, whether she’s manipulating interview subjects into disclosing juicy details or callously asking if the seventh-graders auditioning as her scene partner might just be a little sexier.
The challenge for Haynes’ actors is to not shy away from presenting their characters as harpies while also revealing the glimmers of humanity that bubble beneath. Portman has the tougher job, and it shows. Elizabeth’s blatant opportunism can feel two-dimensional; when she says “This is just what grown-ups do” to Joe during a crucial late scene, the remark is almost too scathing to be credible. (To the extent the movie is lampooning tabloid culture, it feels a little easy.) Portman fares better playing off Moore, who is fabulous. With her light lisp and desperately searching eyes (which often flood with tears), Haynes’ most regular collaborator (this is their fifth film together) commits completely to the part, rendering Gracie helpless and even sympathetic—which in turn only makes her more monstrous. Is Moore’s brilliance also responsible for eliciting such a poignant turn from Melton, a relative newcomer best known for his work on television’s Riverdale? That may be unfair to the young man, whose wary physicality and even-keeled presence help ground the proceedings, at least until a third act when long-held anguish spills out of him like blood from a sliced artery.
It’s strong stuff, though May December is at its best when it keeps its combustible emotions just below its surface, waiting anxiously for them to erupt. When they finally do, as during a fumbling conversation between Joe and his son on their roof, the movie remains engrossing but becomes slightly less exhilarating. To their credit, Haynes and Burch avoid an overly pat finale, instead landing on a delicate mix of closure and ambiguity. The cost of this control is a lack of catharsis—a sense that these characters’ lives will simply continue, without achieving satisfaction or clarity.
Which, I suppose, is a testament to the picture’s personal realism, even in the face of its baroque atmosphere. To that end, its final scene—which merges life and art, experience and invention, humanity and venality—is utterly chilling, even if it is also insightful, provocative, and darkly funny. That’s an uncommon synthesis of sensations, and it speaks to the maturity of Haynes’ artistry. This is what grown-up movies do.
Grade: B+
Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.