Current:Home > ScamsInspired by a 1990s tabloid story, 'May December' fictionalizes a real tragedy -ForexStream
Inspired by a 1990s tabloid story, 'May December' fictionalizes a real tragedy
View
Date:2025-04-13 13:52:35
If you were in reach of a TV or a tabloid in the '90s, you probably remember the case of Mary Kay Letourneau, the Washington state schoolteacher who was convicted of raping her sixth-grade student Vili Fualaau.
Fualaau was 12 when Letourneau, 34, first had sex with him. They had two children, one of whom was born while Letourneau was in prison. After her release in 2004, she and the now-adult Fualauu wed and were married for 14 years until their separation. Letourneau died of cancer in 2020.
The dark and sometimes disturbingly funny new movie May December was inspired by the Letourneau-Fualaau story, though it never mentions them by name. Julianne Moore plays Gracie Atherton-Yoo, who's in her late 50s, and Charles Melton plays her husband, Joe Yoo, who's in his 30s. They have three college-age children and a beautiful home in Savannah, Ga., where their close-knit community has long accepted them despite the scandal that broke out when their relationship came to light two decades earlier.
The director Todd Haynes, working from a smart, layered script by Samy Burch, comes at this material from a fascinating angle. A famous TV actor named Elizabeth Berry, played by the famous movie actor Natalie Portman, is set to play Gracie in an independent film. Elizabeth has come to Savannah to do some research by spending time with the couple, who are hoping they'll be depicted sympathetically. In one scene, Elizabeth attends a barbeque at Gracie and Joe's house and strikes up a conversation about them with one of their friends, who says what she most loves about Gracie is that she's an "unapologetic" woman who "always knows what she wants."
Moore, who gave two of her greatest performances in Haynes' earlier dramas Safe and Far From Heaven, plays Gracie with an edge of steel and a childlike lisp inspired by Letourneau herself. Although Gracie gives Elizabeth a friendly welcome, over the next few days she turns brittle and a little testy as the actor asks about her and Joe's relationship. There's an acid humor to Gracie's defiance as she refuses to wring her hands over her past misdeeds. In her mind, she and Joe and their kids are a happy and pretty normal family.
But Gracie is clearly deluding herself, and it doesn't take long for Elizabeth's presence to drive a wedge between the couple as old, unresolved issues rise to the surface. Melton, best known for the series Riverdale, is quietly revelatory as Joe, a man stuck in a kind of suspended adolescence. We can't help but notice how closely Joe resembles his teenage kids, not just in appearance but in age. Or how Gracie seems to treat him the way a needy mother might treat her son.
But as messed up as Gracie and Joe are, May December seems to respect them more than it does Elizabeth, who's clearly working this situation from every possible angle. Portman, doing her best and subtlest work in some time, brilliantly reveals the calculation behind Elizabeth's polite smiles and gently probing questions. Haynes clearly loves actors, but he isn't afraid to show how callous and even monstrous some of them can be in pursuit of their art. He's also critiquing the endless appetite for sensationalized, ripped-from-the-headlines stories and the industry's willingness to feed it.
All this would be rich dramatic fodder even if it were played perfectly straight. But Haynes, one of the most inventive stylists working in American movies, is incapable of being completely straightforward, and here he walks a tricky tonal line between melodrama, realism and camp.
At times he accents key moments with a deliberately overwrought burst of music, as if to give us a glimpse of the soap opera that Elizabeth's indie film project might well become. Elsewhere his references skew higher-brow: When he positions Moore and Portman side-by-side in closeup, he evokes the dreamy surrealism of Ingmar Bergman's Persona and David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, as if to suggest that Gracie's and Elizabeth's identities are blurring together.
In shifting among these different modes, Haynes reminds us that we're watching a movie, and that most movies can only give us a partial understanding of the truth. Still, for all its surface artifice and self-aware humor, what's striking about May December is how piercingly sad it becomes as it invites us to feel the full weight of Gracie and Joe's loneliness and desperation. These characters may be fictionalized constructs, but their tragedy is all too real.
veryGood! (9)
Related
- Juan Soto to be introduced by Mets at Citi Field after striking record $765 million, 15
- Jurors to hear opening statements in trial of ex-politician accused of killing Las Vegas reporter
- Mega Millions winning numbers for August 13 drawing: Jackpot climbs to $435 million
- Donald Trump is going to North Carolina for an economic speech. Can he stick to a clear message?
- Charges tied to China weigh on GM in Q4, but profit and revenue top expectations
- Sister Wives Season 19 Trailer Shows Kody Brown's Relationships Unravel After Marrying Wrong Person
- Kylie Jenner Details Postpartum Depression Journey After Welcoming Her 2 Kids
- Texas church demolished after mass shooting. How should congregations process tragedy?
- Intel's stock did something it hasn't done since 2022
- Wembley Stadium tells fans without Taylor Swift tickets not to come as security tightens
Ranking
- 'Kraven the Hunter' spoilers! Let's dig into that twisty ending, supervillain reveal
- Agents seize nearly 3,000 pounds of meth hidden in celery at Georgia farmers market
- What is big, green and 150 million years old? Meet dinosaur skeleton 'Gnatalie.'
- 'Growing up is hard enough': Jarren Duran's anti-gay slur could hurt LGBTQ youth
- Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow owns a $3 million Batmobile Tumbler
- Tropical Storm Ernesto pummels northeast Caribbean and leaves hundreds of thousands in the dark
- Influencer Christine Tran Ferguson Shares She's Pregnant One Year After Son Asher's Death
- Flavor Flav offers Jordan Chiles bronze clock after medal controversy
Recommendation
Israel lets Palestinians go back to northern Gaza for first time in over a year as cease
Jorō spiders, the mysterious arachnids invading the US, freeze when stressed, study shows
Columbus Crew vs. Inter Miami live updates: Messi still missing for Leagues Cup game today
As Colorado River states await water cuts, they struggle to find agreement on longer-term plans
House passes bill to add 66 new federal judgeships, but prospects murky after Biden veto threat
Janet Jackson says she's related to Stevie Wonder, Samuel L. Jackson and Tracy Chapman
Another person dies at Death Valley National Park amid scorching temperatures
Developers of stalled Minnesota copper-nickel mine plan studies that may lead to significant changes