THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
It is one thing to seek connection, but don't do it to gain anything out of it.
PLOT
May December takes place in 2015 and follows actress Elizabeth Berry visiting the city of Savannah, Georgia for the sake of research of an upcoming role. She is going to play 59 year old Gracie Atherton, who at the time of 1992, when she was 36, got caught having an affair with 13 year old Joe Yoo, who was a schoolmate of her eldest son Georgie. When she went to prison for her actions, she gave birth to Joe's firstborn Honor (Piper Curda). 23 years later, they've now married and have three children total: Honor is attending college, whereas twins Charlie & Mary (Gabriel Chung & Elizabeth Yu) are about to graduate high school. When Elizabeth gets her first interview with the taboo couple, she asks questions about their lives before their first sexual encounter, which Gracie doesn't seem to share too much of. This would lead to her meeting her first husband Tom (DW Moffett), who recounts having a good relationship with her before meeting Joe, having three kids with her within their marriage (Georgie, Cassidy [Hailey Wist] & Billy [John Eric Lee Smith]). She would also meet Georgie who is a local musician, share his heartbreak on what his mother did, recalling with his dad how naive and passive she was. Elizabeth would continue spending time with Gracie's family in order to study her body language and mannerisms, as well as practice her makeup routine. Not only does she visit the pet store where her sexual encounter with Joe took place, just for the sake of reenactment, but also visits the twins' school for a Q&A. She would share the intimacy that can occur for a sex scene, but confesses how much she enjoys playing characters that are morally ambiguous, which visibly upsets Mary. In Joe's spare time, he has the hobby of rearing butterflies which he texts about to an unnamed friend. He considers take a vacation with her, but she rebuffs him to remind him he's married. He later bonds with Charlie by smoking weed for the first time, which only leads to him weeping in his son's arms, as he wants him to enjoy whatever the future comes from college. The following day, Elizabeth has lunch with Gracie's family at a restaurant, only to have an awkward encounter with Tom's family. By evening, Georgie proposes getting a job as music supervisor for the film in exchange of details of Gracie's life (where she was apparently abused by her brothers) and not disparaging the film to the press. She doesn't give him an answer, but gets a ride home from Joe. She accommodates him in return by inviting her to her apartment, but things take a turn when the two have sex. Joe would at first enjoy himself but would be upset on how she only sees his life as another story to recreate. When he leaves, she practices monologuing a letter Gracie wrote to him early on in their relationship. Joe would come home to confront Gracie for the first time of what happened, but she refuses to accept she was at fault and says he was the one to seduce her. The morning after, Gracie would go out hunting before the twins' graduation ceremony. There, Joe would weep alone in the crowd, proud to see his children grow up. Elizabeth would be present as well to say goodbye to Gracie, but in the process, the latter would tell the former that Georgie lied of the story of her brothers. The film would end with showing Elizabeth recreating the incident where Joe is seduced by Gracie, but does not feel satisfied with the process compared to the director.
THOUGHTS
I jumped on board with checking this out thanks to good word of mouth on social media since I had not seen the trailers in advance, nor did I like the posters. This was another case of me making the mistake of judging a book by the cover because I was shook on how captivating of a film this was. Director Todd Haynes and writer Samy Burch share something that feels unthinkable to discuss. Within every passing every second, frame by frame, you get this self awareness on how people who choose to be close can do it for personal gain, whereas also seeing there are others who will refuse to own up to their mistakes long after making them. Seeing this dynamic flow between Elizabeth and Gracie is hellaciously intense because you’re not rooting for anyone, you’re just witnessing how far they’ll go to maintain their own egos. Natalie Portman shows Elizabeth as one highly determined to perfect the portrayal of her character and pushes the limit by bonding with the people the character is based on. Biopics are very tempting films to make because you want to respect the subject no matter how disturbing and the whole point of making those kind of films are to be informative for those who don’t pay attention to what’s around. Elizabeth just takes it too far with her research in her attempts to become Gracie. She basically does to the point where she becomes the predator by seducing Joe. She uses him and doesn’t have shame like Elizabeth which is a problem because she doesn’t make herself any better than her. You want to be in awe of her monologue where she recites the letter, but little would she expect how undermined she would be. Julianne Moore really got under my skin as Gracie because she walks with no shame after going through consequences. Since she grew up with mostly men around her in her childhood, learning how to hunt so early on, it appears she got too comfortable with the mindset of a dominant predator and having control over something makes her happy. That is what happened when she met Joe and created an emotional chain over him ever since. The hatred one would have over her definitely enhances when she chooses to play victim whenever and denies being in the wrong, but you gotta respect how she undermined Elizabeth with the assist of Georgie. She still deserves to be called out at every given chance, yet you relate to how she wants to put the past behind her and that was her intent when having her son lie of her past. She knew the best way to put it behind her for good was to mess up the mindset of an actress imitating her and it worked as the latter did not feel at her A game upon production of the film. From there, there is no telling if she’ll regain it. With two imposing women, it can get hard to narrow down who to root for in this story alone and you get your answer when looking at Joe. Cory Michael Smith embraced a fair amount of conflict-ion as Georgie, but it’s Charles Melton that makes your heart melt because he makes it visible how emotionally scarred he is as a victim. His innocence was taken from him so soon to the point he really doesn’t know what to do as an adult. Every time he talks to someone, you just know he doesn’t really belong the way he should. Even his kids are aware on how awkward it is for their upbringing. He breaks down when smoking with his son because he wants him to have a better life than him. Again, you feel bad for him when Elizabeth takes advantage of him the way Gracie did. So when he confronts her again, he knew it was time to cut ties that should’ve been cut a long time ago. His tears were definitely genuine at the graduation ceremony, but it ain’t just because he’s proud of his kids. To me, it says he realized he has a new opportunity to pursue his interests without feeling secretive. Rearing butterflies was such a personal hobby to him because it represented how much he desired to be free the way they do. And with his kids all grown up, he’s got the path to do so and I hope he does. In short, May December is one of the boldest dramas of 2023 for being thought provoking in the most unlikely way possible. If you got Netflix and prefer those kind of movies, see this as soon as possible.
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