Written by Andreas Babiolakis

Warning: this review deals with themes like sexual assault, statutory rape, and grooming which can be triggering topics. This review also has minor spoilers for May December. Reader discretion is advised.

In the same way an actor can lose themself in a role, a film can lose itself within itself. When handled by a director who doesn’t know what they are doing, this results in a mess. When an experienced filmmaker is at the helm, the result is usually exquisite.

Who doesn’t know the story of Mary Kay Letourneu and twelve-year-old Vil Fualaau: the elementary school teacher who engaged in inappropriate, sexual relations with her sixth-grade student, served time for her felonies and proceeded to marry the very child she preyed upon until they separated nearly fifteen years afterwards. Of course, if someone like Todd Haynes is going to approach this well-documented story via a cinematic rendition, we would need something refreshing. Who needs the same story being retold exactly as-is? What can we get out of this story that doesn’t feel like the romanticization of statutory rape or the retreading of what we already know? Haynes took a step back and, with the help of Samy Burch’s screenplay, reevaluated the concept of what a film about such a topic would look like by creating a film about said result. What do we get? May December: a meta film where we not only witness the preemptive measures an actress takes to inhabit such a tricky spirit for an upcoming feature, but Haynes’ melodramatic, tongue-in-cheek version that makes us feel like we’re actually watching the film-within-a-film that will transpire.

The most obvious inspiration here is Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, not just regarding the concept of two women whose identities, souls, and visages begin to blend into one another to the point that the audience loses track of who is who. May December takes the element of Persona where one of the leads is an actress to a whole different level as the character Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) is a performer preparing to play Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore, whose character is based on Mary Kay). She wants to get everything down, from Gracie’s history to her makeup routine (the latter most certainly makes the two characters look astonishingly similar). While the Bergman influence is apparent, I want to point out the director whose make I wasn’t expecting during this film: Pedro Almodóvar. May December is so fluid with its genre-bending, melodrama, and ambiguity that it honestly felt like I was watching a film by the Spanish master. Nope. This is a Todd Haynes affair, and a damn fine one at that: proof that he is sensational at identifying what tone, vibe, aesthetic, and end result he wants with his films at any given time. Consider that a film as artistically rich and morally grey as May December was made by the same guy who crafted the horrifying Safe, the journalist drama Dark Waters, and the period tragedy Carol. Haynes is versatile, and strongly so. To wrap up the Almodóvian similarities, May December really feels like we are watching the end result of the film that Elizabeth is working on, from the campy theatrics to the over-the-top drama (thanks in part to Marcelo Zarvos’ self-aware score); this is the kind of meta filmmaking that reminds me of Pain and Glory or All About my Mother (who cares about separating the study and the end result when a film can be both at the same time?).

Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore are terrific in *May December*, as both established thespians embrace the film’s campiness and drill to the heart of the dark subject matter simultaneously.

Back to the plot: Elizabeth Berry visits the house of Gracie and her husband Joe (Charles Melton) who have kids of their own (including a pair of twins that are graduating from high school and preparing for college). Elizabeth is going to play Gracie in an upcoming movie about how Gracie met Joe in elementary school while serving as his teacher, and she is going to shadow Gracie for a few weeks to “tell her story” as truthfully as possible. Take note that the film doesn’t actually base itself on its source with the real people involved: this is all about the transmission and reception of truth via the cinematic medium, and directly telling the true story would lose this talking point. Carrying on with the plot, Elizabeth instantly feels out of place as she is met with hostility from just about everyone (despite their gracious attitudes, you can tell how everyone is really feeling). The more Elizabeth interviews people in Gracie’s life of past and present, the further into this lore we get. We dip into the psychology of it all, from why Gracie abandoned her former family to be with a child, to how everyone affected by these actions is coping. Meanwhile, we screen the very unusual (obviously) marriage between Gracie and Joe, where the former has tearful tantrums at the drop of a hat, and the latter is both a trapped child and extremely mature for his age because of how stunted his growth has been.

That’s when May December becomes riveting. Joe has an affinity for taking care of caterpillars and raising them until their cocoon states crack open and reveal their monarch butterfly selves. As we watch these insects grow throughout the film, we know what Joe wasn’t granted: the ability to blossom into adulthood. He was forced into it by a grooming predator. On one hand, he had to force himself to play catchup and be an adult and a father (!) when he clearly wasn’t ready. He’s trying his best. He’s decent at it. On the other hand, he never had the opportunity to actually experience his teen years (nay, his tween years). He missed out on so much of his youth because of Gracie. Then there’s Gracie herself, who is decades older than Joe and yet she acts like a child with her naivety and sensitivity. If May December ended there with its take on emotional and psychological stymieing, it would be a really good film. It goes further.

Even ignoring the side characters and how Gracie and Joe’s kids are conflicted about whether or not their father is like a sibling or a guardian, or Gracie’s other children and ex-husband from her first marriage being left to pick up the pieces of their notoriety, there’s the film itself. May December is darkly comedic, hyperbolic, depressing, thrilling, and artistic. In some ways, it feels like a very juvenile take on such a story, but it also aims to be as dark as possible (perhaps in edgy ways). That’s when it hits you: May December is as conflicted with its identity as the characters in is narrative, and that’s brilliant storytelling. It is a comedy that is trying to be serious and floundering, and a drama trying to be funny and settling for awkwardness. When does it strive to be either kind of film? It’s hard to pinpoint, and that’s half the fun. Do we laugh when Elizabeth complains that all of the auditions to play Joe are sent in by kids who aren’t “sexy” enough? Do we cry when Gracie has a meltdown or try to understand her mental state? Outside of a couple of clear moments (the most over-the-top response to being low on hotdogs you may ever see in a film, it’s safe to say), May December is so tonally ambiguous that you’re left fending for yourself. It’s better this way.

*May December* toys with its own tone to the point of confusion: a self-breaking mechanic that renders the film worthy of multiple watches.

Let’s not forget Elizabeth’s purpose in all of this: as the outlier who forgets that she is one as she tries to converge more and more into Gracie’s story (the fact that she herself calls this a “story” is met with vitriol from Joe who responds by reminding her that this is his life, and it means something completely different to him). While Persona is my favourite film of all time, I do appreciate that May December doesn’t go fully into this territory; while Elizabeth immerses herself, she loses a sense of why she is even doing what she is doing. A major theme May December plops in our lap right at the end is the idea of what truth is: there’s what we are told, and what we inherit based on our own findings. Is this Haynes’ way of admitting that this is his own Adaptation.: a film that is loosely based on what it is based on while deriving its own reason to exist? Sure, we could have had the Mary Kay Letourneau story verbatim, but instead we have an analysis of the cinematic process when it comes to honouring others. There’s no way that a film can pinpoint why a predator would do what they do, never mind one that the media spoon-fed us tales of for decades. May December never tries to reason with illness: Elizabeth may, but the film — and Haynes — don’t. Furthermore, May December uses Elizabeth as a way of viewing the atrocities Gracie committed without ever actually seeing her doing so via flashbacks or recreations. Haynes leaves us to fill in the gruesome details with our imaginations. It’s a great way of both conveying and obfuscating the truth, because what is the truth outside of how we relay or perceive it? Haynes complicates what “based on a true story” means, and it’s the kind of lesson film was in dire need of (with all these mundane biopics, anyhow).

This leads to the emptiness brought forth by the film’s ending: one that befuddled me until I quickly realized that this is what Haynes wanted. You can’t search for answers in a film like this: one that dismantles itself to the point of being unrecognizable at times. The film is all about blurring lines in some exceptional ways; Elizabeth using a confessional letter from Gracie to Joe as a monologue to rehearse with; Elizabeth visiting the spot where Gracie and Joe were caught to try and reenact their sexual exploration; even outside of the film’s boundaries, we have Julianne Moore mimicking Natalie Portman’s accent and not the other way around (the in-film actor playing the former), making that line fuzzier and fuzzier. Perhaps one of my favourite sequences of 2023 involves Elizabeth and Gracie taking the latter’s daughter's dress shopping, and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt delivers a shot for the ages. The mirrors place Gracie both on Elizabeth’s left and right sides, as the actor is trapped in between both “sides” of Gracie; whenever her daughter comes forth with a new dress, she obstructs our view so we only see parts of Gracie and none of Elizabeth (and yet we hear them both at all times). This is astonishing imagery in a film I was hoping to see some sandboxing with (but I didn’t expect it to go quite this far to the point of mesmerization).

It doesn’t stop there. With clever jump cuts (a film set’s ringing bell right after a high school scene tricking me into thinking I’m hearing the class alarm going off is an example of this), illusionary images (a particularly dark bedroom shot where we aren’t even sure if we’re looking at Gracie or Elizabeth for a good few seconds), and strong parallels throughout the entire film, May December vows to play tricks on you just like Persona and its many inspired films (3 Women, Mulholland Drive, et cetera, et cetera), but it also does so with some similar-yet-newer ideas that haven’t been attempted before. Maybe Bergman was onto something after all. In the meantime and on the topic of how this film looks, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up how green this film is. In a film full of arrested developments, feigned maturity, and the urgency to find resolutions where there aren’t any, the film embraces the concept of growth the entire time with its emerald hues. Are we caterpillars in terrariums waiting on a higher being to help us grow? If we aren’t, these characters sure are; an actress awaiting the next steps and directions and taking charge when it isn’t appropriate; a groomer who is acting as a mother, wife, and child to her student; a man-child who no longer knows how to be either. Green also represents envy, and we have dreamers here wishing for better lives as they deceive themselves into thinking they are good, moral citizens. These characters easily merge with one another because they themselves inhabit nothingness. They lie for a living (particularly Elizabeth the actor), especially to themselves. They embrace the camera, whether it’s for a film or series or the news. There’s nothing to these people outside of how they’ve been labelled: star; monster; prey.

Portman, Moore, and Melton are all phenomenal in May December. They all embrace the campiness of the film, the awkwardness in between, and the emotional weight of such a prickly topic. As great as Haynes is with the amalgamation — or pure elimination — of genres (and he’s next to perfect here), these three actors are the catalysts that help him get to his endgame. With Moore playing both Gracie and Natalie Portman (not her character, but the actress herself), and Portman playing Gracie the character specifically, May December becomes a labyrinth of acting that begs you to watch the film more than once as to pry apart each performer (if you can even do that at all). Melton holds his own with these two established icons with a vulnerable performance that adds at least some sort of rationale in a film full of leeches (a perverted teacher who groomed a child, and a star that will do whatever it takes to understand her real-life inspiration). Together, these three performers balance jokes, insults, and all the grey areas in between with pure ease. I can’t think of many others who would actually have chemistry like this in a film that seeks to destroy any form of relatability. It in and of itself is quite a feat.

May December may be a lot more out there than the average person would bargain for, but it is so much stronger as a result. We signed up for a story on culpability and guilt. Instead, we get an exploration of the areas of the moral compasses most filmmakers avoid because it’s just too difficult to market and sell. Luckily, Haynes never cared for this. When he wants to make a film that appeals to the masses, he does so. Otherwise, he marches to the beat of his own drum. With his underground roots, he is one of the best contemporary visionaries when it comes to on-screen juxtapositions (and also the lack thereof; Haynes often divides his shots with a focal point far to one side and empty space clogging up the room, and he implements this photographic blueprint numerous times here to great effect). In a film full of dichotomy and duality, there may not be a better director working today to handle such notions in this way. There’s the literal take with two women sharing the screen in similar poses, or with faces blocked to build this idea. Then there’s the duality of the self, with a star acting and shielding her true intentions, and lovers who try to live happily but also know deep down that their marriage is wrong.

May and December could not be as different as months. The former encourages the rise of plants and the return of summer, while the latter is in the thick of winter and the death of most vegetation. Outside of the obvious reference (a May-December romance is one between a younger and older person), I think the title is literal in the sense that Elizabeth’s research begins in the spring and her film kicks off in the winter, but I also would like to think that May December is the celebration of growth, the inevitability that we will stop growing, and the examination of the process in between. How much do we really evolve as people? Most of us (thank goodness) are not as awful as Gracie is, but do any of us really get to where we need to get to in life? May December is just a microscopic lens on the matter; we don’t need to be as stunted as Gracie and Joe to relate, but we do know what it feels like to have imposter syndrome, wonder where life went and how we got to this place in time.

As May December and the film-within-a-film scramble to find purpose within moral sickness and a widely popular news story, it’s a reminder that sometimes there just isn’t anything more to what we experience. Some news stories don’t have a moral we can learn from. Not everything is black and white. In the same way, we won’t get one specific takeaway from the film, Elizabeth gets nothing out of her research outside of a “character” (and not the real person), no matter how hard she tries. Dig deeper into May December and extrapolate your own discoveries. There’s nothing specific here. You may not get anything at all, and that’s fine: it’s safe to say that humans are quite good at holding themselves back, especially when we don’t know what comes next, how we should grow, or what the point of any of this is. We can strive to be the caterpillar and become the butterfly, or we can wait for someone like Joe to provide us with the means to do so.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.