May December: Tabloid Fodder Becomes Moral Gray Zone in Todd Haynes’ Smart Film

By Liz Braun

Rating: A

Enquiring minds want to know: May December is terrific.

May December is a movie about moral gray zones, a look at contemporary culture through the unique Todd Haynes lens. What’s involved are great writing and great performances.

This is a film about perception and reality.

The story is loosely based on the Mary Kay Letourneau case. Letourneau, 34, was a married schoolteacher with four children when she began a relationship with a grade six student, Vili Fualaau, aged 12. Letourneau went to prison for sexual assault, but in the end, she and Fualaau were together for 20 years.

Every move they made was supermarket tabloid fodder.

In May December, this scandalous relationship story is many years in the rearview, and Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) are preparing to be empty nesters as their twins graduate high school. It would seem their life together, though unusual, has been successful enough to have long ago silenced any critics.

Well, maybe.

Into their lives comes famed TV actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) who is about to portray Gracie in a new movie. To Gracie, the actress insinuating herself into their household is a hopeful sign that her and Joe’s “true love” version of events may finally triumph.

But not so fast. This is a story about performance and identity, and the screenplay from Sami Burch is wonderfully unsettling and subversive, so prepare to be uncomfortable.

Nobody is exactly who they appear to be here, and much of the storytelling revolves around the fabrications we present to ourselves and others on a daily basis. Gracie has a clear vision of how she and Joe became a couple, but others have a very different tale to tell.

As Elizabeth, Natalie Portman initially seems to be a viewer’s way into the story, but soon enough her persona begins to wobble a bit around the edges. As the two women dance around each other, getting to know one another, information is exchanged that may or may not be taken at face value.

In this movie, even the soundtrack can’t be trusted.

May December flirts with the way the world we live in is dominated by tabloid news and reality TV, the tawdrier the better; the line between fact and fiction is ever more slippery.

So many different takes on the truth here — it's like the National Enquirer version of Rashomon.

May December is often very funny, and Haynes manipulates a viewer’s responses even as he demonstrates how we all manipulate the reality around us.

If you’re in charge of handicapping the office Oscar pool, you’ll want to see this film.

May December. Directed by Todd Haynes. Written by Sami Burch and Alex Mechanik. Starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton. In theatres November 17 and on Netflix December 1.