May December (2023, R)

*Premise spoilers.*

I was interested in this movie as soon as I heard about it. I was bit wary when I heard it described as “camp,” but I still wanted to see it. I watched the film recently, and I thought it was really well done.

Elizabeth, a Hollywood actress, has just arrived in Savannah to research for a role. She’s going to be starring in the true story of Gracie Atherton-Yoo, who served time in the ‘90s after grooming and abusing a 13-year-old boy. But 24 years have gone by, and now Gracie and Joe are performing an idyllic family life with their three children. Elizabeth is there to observe Gracie and learn what she can from interviewing her and other folks in town, but the longer she stays, the more she appears to get tangled up in the role in a toxic way.

First of all, elephant in the room: the details of Gracie’s case are inspired by the real-life story of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau, at times to an intentionally uncanny degree, but it is ultimately a fictional story. That’s what I’m going to focus on here.

I’ve encountered a number of other stories dealing with the sexual abuse of children or teenagers, everything from harrowing stories of trauma to really problematic portrayals of high schoolers “sneaking around” with the hot young teacher, but I’ve never seen one that looks at the subject from this angle. Because while it’s not the first to set the story years/decades after the fact, it’s definitely the first I’ve seen that shows the adult survivor still caught up in the sphere of their abuser.

We’ll get to Elizabeth in a minute, but I need to start with Joe. His place in the story is fascinating, horrifying, and heartbreaking. Although he’s now in his mid-30s, it’s clear how arrested his development is. Here’s a man, a father of three, who’s been groomed since he was a kid, and that grooming has continued through his adulthood. We see it in how Gracie portrays herself as the loving wife but often treats Joe as her mature-for-his-age son, like her “little man” to instruct and manage. She’s also perversely manipulative in how she twists situations to make herself into the victim, getting Joe to comfort her as she cries about one thing or another, from the lingering smell of grill smoke to Elizabeth’s increasingly overbearing presence.

The whole situation gets even more awful when we see how Gracie and Joe are treated in their community. The big happy barbecue Gracie arranges on the day of Elizabeth’s arrival is obviously orchestrated to project a certain image, but all those guests had to come from somewhere, and they all walk around acting like Grace and Joe are just like any other couple. The complicity is so gross—it makes me want to scream, “Why didn’t anyone help this child???”

Throwing Elizabeth into the proceedings adds an extra layer to the whole thing. At what point does inhabiting the role of a terrible real person take over? When does trying to understand the “character” turn into justifying them? Where’s the line for studying their “complexity” when you’re also interacting face-to-face with the victim who’s still caught in their orbit? When does art and a dogged pursuit of “authenticity” end up exploiting people’s actual lives?

The movie definitely has humor in it, but it isn’t flippant about its subject matter. The score is effectively oppressive and never lets you relax into the façade of the cozy suburban setting. The film knows when to embrace excess and when to knock it out of the park in an understated way—one of the most striking scenes features Elizabeth alone in her lodgings, watching tapes from actors auditioning to play Joe.

May December’s sole Oscar nomination is an Original Screenplay nod for Samy Burch, and it deserves it for all the reasons I described above. But the acting is terrific as well, and I’m bummed that these performances didn’t get more recognition. It's no surprise that watching Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman go toe-to-toe as Gracie and Elizabeth is simply excellent. Both characters are masters of performance, and the two actresses do a fascinating dance around one another as Elizabeth falls deeper and deeper into her preparations. There’s something just slightly old-fashioned about the work both of them are turning in here, almost a faint whiff of something like Norma Desmond. Meanwhile, Charles Melton (Reggie from Riverdale!) gives a remarkable, grounded performance as Joe—certainly, less showy than either Moore or Portman, but it’s the type of performance where every tiny thing he does all contributes to building Joe as a character. And I didn’t recognize Cory Michael Smith at all (he played the Riddler on Gotham,) but he’s very good as Georgie, one of Gracie’s sons from her first marriage and a contemporary of Joe.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including discussions of child sexual abuse—no flashbacks shown onscreen,) sexual content, language, and drinking/smoking/drug use.