True-to-life story of woman who seduced 12-year-old
Published 2024-03-07 10.24
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full screen Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore in “May December”. Photo: Netflix
May december
Regi Todd Haynes, med Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, Cory Michael Smith, Elizabeth Yu.
MOVIE REVIEW. Two deeply narcissistic, stubborn women collide in this dark, fascinating but also beautifully melodramatic story.
Director Todd Haynes gives us winks in Ingmar Bergman’s direction.
DRAMA. They show up here and there with their styluses, those who obsess over age differences between adults in a relationship. It can get tiring.
But when abuse is the basis of the entire relationship, the discussion takes a much more unpleasant direction. This drama portrays a relationship that, upon closer inspection, makes one shudder.
Movie star Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) comes to Savannah, Georgia, to meet the woman she is going to play in a movie. It’s Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), who together with her husband Joe (Charles Melton) invites her into the home.
23 years ago, the sexual relationship between Gracie and Joe was revealed.
She was 36 years old and worked in a pet store.
Joe was 12 and her son’s best friend.
Gave birth in prison
Gracie ended up in the finca, but was already pregnant; the couple’s first child was born while she was locked up. When Gracie was released, she was reunited with Joe, who was then an adult. They got married, had more children and now live a “normal” life in Savannah.
That is the story to be told in Elizabeth’s film, and she soon becomes fascinated by the woman she will portray.
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full screen Julianne Moore and Charles Melton in “May December”. Photo: Netflix
In several of his best works, such as the films “Far from heaven” and “Carol”, as well as the mini-series “Mildred Pierce”, has Todd Haynes created colorful portraits of exciting ladies, with a 50s scent Douglas Sirk-aesthetics face a threat to the glamorous surface.
Here’s Haynes and the screenwriter Samy Burch hooked on a true-to-life story in which a Washington state teacher seduced his 12-year-old student and, after serving prison time, built a family with him. A marriage that lasted 14 years.
In passiv-aggressive in
A deeply controversial relationship, of course. Elizabeth becomes our cicerone into this strange family, but the relationship with Gracie becomes like a passive-aggressive dance, where Haynes sought Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona” for inspiration.
Portman and Moore are phenomenal together, even downright funny at times. Melton also impresses in a role that becomes a touching symbol of how insidious abuse can be, even years after the crime.
Some of Hayne’s ideas in the film may seem a little corny, but his melodramatic vein, such as when he reuses Michel Legrands music to the film classic “The Messenger” (1971), makes it hard to resist this delicious tragedy.
The film is shown in cinemas.
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full screen Bruce Greenwood and Carla Gugino in “Gerald’s game”. Photo: Netflix
Also be sure to see…
… the shiverer ”Gerald’s game” (2017), which is based on a Stephen King-history and is also about processing the trauma from sexual abuse.
Did you know that…
… Will Ferrell is one of the producers behind the film?
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